Lowry stages are where you’ll catch much of this autumn’s most adventurous performance. Spanning theatre, dance, circus and the frankly unclassifiable, here are our top picks from the contemporary season.

Double Booking brings surreal dance-theatre about an orchestra with two rival conductors. L’Addition takes a single scene and fractures it into an absurdist kaleidoscope. Yes Person sees two Berlin circus artists turn years of discarded ideas into an anarchic blend of acrobatics, clowning and performance art. And LOVE**WORK resists labels altogether in a delightfully odd musing on the fragile relationship between love and labour.

Some shows turn the attention back on the audience. Thanks for Being Here is a discombobulating ode to the people in the seats, using live video to put them on stage. Other shows look outwards, with Woodhill bringing verbatim dance-theatre built from the testimony of three families who lost sons at HMP Woodhill.

New musical theatre has a strong showing, too: How Soon Is Now? returns to New Year’s Eve 1997 with a live soundtrack of indie bands from The Smiths to The Stone Roses and Radiohead. Jeezus, meanwhile, is either ‘cheeky’ or a display of blasphemy fit to damn its creators for all eternity, depending on your mood.

Lowry has never been afraid of new and experimental work, but even by its own standards, this is a generous helping. Read about each show in full below.