The Choir of Man at Mayflower Theatre

If you are after a night out that is hard to pin down to a single genre, The Choir of Man is worth a look. It lands at the Mayflower Theatre from Tuesday 3 to Saturday 7 November, as part of a wider UK and Ireland tour, and it is billed as a high-energy mix of comedy and song that works for all ages. The premise is simple enough: the show is set in a traditional British or Irish pub, with a working bar on stage from which pints are served to the audience, and the nine-piece cast doubles as the pub's regulars.

Those nine people are doing a lot of work. They are multi-instrumentalists, singers and wordsmiths, and the setlist runs the gamut from Queen, Luther Vandross, Sia and Paul Simon to Adele, Guns N' Roses, Avicii and Katy Perry, all rearranged by Jack Blume. The dialogue is not a traditional script but a series of spoken-word monologues written by performance poet Ben Norris, while the movement and choreography come from tap dancer Freddie Huddleston. It is an Olivier Award-nominated show that has built a reputation as a celebration of community and friendship, and the reviews lean heavily into that: the Daily Mail called it exhilarating, Broadway World found it wildly entertaining and full of raucous cheer, and the Chicago Tribune described it as just the thing for a warm-spirited night on the town.

On the setlist you will find Welcome to the Jungle, Save Tonight/Wake Me Up, Teenage Dream, The Impossible Dream, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, Hello, Escape (The Piña Colada Song), I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), Under the Bridge, Chandelier, Somebody to Love, You're the Voice, Some Nights, and The Parting Glass, alongside the original Bring Tomorrow On. The performance runs about two hours with one interval, and there are a few things worth knowing before you book: it includes alcohol consumption, flashing lights and the use of haze.

The venue is a part of the draw itself. The Mayflower is a Grade II-listed Art Deco theatre with 2,300 seats, the largest on the south coast, and it opened in 1928 before adding a cinema screen in 1933. In the 1960s and 70s it hosted the likes of the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Police and Kate Bush, and it has since become a regular stop for West End tours. It sits a few minutes' walk from Southampton Central station and is served by bus lines 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, X5 and X7, so getting there and back is straightforward.

This stop is one of many on a tour that takes in Swindon, Northampton, Salford, Wolverhampton, Dublin, Blackpool, High Wycombe, Edinburgh and London, and the production is booking well beyond the Southampton dates. Whether you go for the music, the comedy or simply the novelty of a pub on stage, it is an easy one to bring a group to.