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Midlands Theatre in 2005Dateline: 2nd January, 2006Who needs London when there's such a variety of productions on offer in the Midlands? I must admit it's a huge area and you may not be too keen on journeying from one end to the other. But if you're prepared to travel, you can find all sorts of quality theatre, some of it before it transfers to the capital. Of course you can get the first look at the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions in Stratford before they make their way down the M40. It's been another good year for the RSC whose financial problems have sunk deeper than the Avon thanks to artistic director Michael Boyd. The comedies season proved popular, in particular The Comedy of Errors, and the company must be eagerly waiting for the upcoming Complete Works festival. One of the RSC's productions is a strong contender for my best of the year. When Vanessa Redgrave had to cancel her run in Hecuba at Stratford because of illness, the company quickly had to find something to take its place. Up popped Alan Howard, Richard Johnson, Donald Sinden and Harriet Walter with The Hollow Crown, a celebration about the kings and queens of England. The quartet were simply mesmerising. Elsewhere, Maureen Lipman's portrayal of tone-deaf vocalist Florence Foster Jenkins in Peter Quilter's play Glorious! started life at Birmingham Rep before moving to London. The Rep continued to offer quality productions in artistic director Jonathan Church's last year before he takes up a similar position at Chichester Festival Theatre. I particularly enjoyed Kwame Kwei-Armah in his own play Elmina's Kitchen and Neville's Island with a strong performance from Les Dennis. Arnold Wesker's Chicken Soup With Barley opened in the Midlands, at Nottingham Playhouse, before it had a six-week run at the Tricycle. The Playhouse had a supremely successful 12 months, with the highlights including Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, presented with its original ending, and the Brian Clough play Old Big 'ead in The Spirit of the Man which is shortly to go on tour. Down the road in Derby, the creative team of Karen Louise Hebden and Stephen Edwards have had mixed fortunes. They came up with a superb version of Sondheim's Company, a solid production of Macbeth and a reasonable offering in Serial Killers, a play about scriptwriters on an Australian soap. But the Playhouse gave us a Mary Stuart that was dull, a Christmas play Arabian Nights which lacked sparkle and a wacky Romeo and Juliet which was probably the worst thing I saw this year. Leicester Haymarket was back in business after overcoming its financial problems and presented a brave Macbeth, with the audience right up close to the action and treachery in the first half. I also enjoyed occasional trips to the New Vic at Newcastle-under-Lyme where I saw an inventive production of The Graduate and a clever look at the early life of Catherine Cookson in Kitty and Kate. Best of the year? A toss-up between The Hollow Crown and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. As for touring productions, Nottingham's Theatre Royal staged Miss Saigon and Journey's End (which I didn't review). Each was in its own way impeccable. Steve Orme
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