Now booking: it was a smash hit last Christmas and it’ll no doubt be a smash hit again, as the National Theatre production returns to The Lowry in Salford.

Thirty-five thousand can’t be wrong. That’s how many people went to see The Curious Incident in just three weeks when it came to Manchester in December 2014. It’s a production that’s undeniably successful. It has won more accolades than Manchester has had rainy days, among them seven Oliviers, a Time Magazine “top theatrical experience of the year” award, and one from our own Manchester Theatre Awards. It’s also a production that has pulled off the almost impossible feat of achieving mainstream success and critical acclaim – some of those 35,000 or so souls were critics from broadsheets and tabloids, who also queued up to sing its praises.

That’s two good reasons to go and see it – or 35,000, depending on how you look at it

This November, the adaptation of Mark Haddon’s hugely popular book returns – for a five-day run that’s sure to sell out. The novel tells the sometimes funny, other times moving story of a young boy with an extraordinary mathematical brain who, it is implied, has Asperger’s. Also interesting, at least for Mancunian theatre goers, are the play’s connections to Manchester. The Curious Incident is directed by Marianne Elliott (daughter of Michael Elliott, founder of the Royal Exchange); she went on to become its artistic director before heading to London, first to the Royal Court and then to the National Theatre, where she remains an associate director.

And the play was adapted by Simon Stephens, the Stockport-born, Olivier Award-winning playwright who was also behind HOME’s first ever production, The Funfair. So that’s several good reasons to go and see this play – or 35,000, depending on how you look at it.