Performer: Steven East

A top-notch adaptation of a very scary folktale into a dynamic new opera, and an interesting meditation on cultural crisis in modern Iran, makes for a superb night at Tête à Tête. 

The King’s Head Theatre in Islington is, as one might suspect from the name, in the back of a pub. Founded in 1970, it was the first pub theatre to open in London since Shakespeare’s time. Housed in a back room that used to contain a boxing ring, it is tiny: tightly packed seating for maybe 60 or 70 people and an unelevated stage, beginning where the seating stops.