Pygmalion, Silver Lining, Machine Stops

Pygmalion - tour starts 4 February

Alex Beckett is to play Henry Higgins and Natalie Gavin is to play Eliza Doolittle in a radical staging of Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

Also in the cast are Ian Burfield as Alfred Doolittle, Gavi Singh Chera as Freddy Eynsford Hill, Flaminia Cinque as Mrs Pearce and Mrs Eynsford-Hill, Racheal Ofori as Clara Eynsford-Hill, Liza Sadovy as Mrs Higgins and Raphael Sowole as Colonel Pickering.

Directed by Sam Pritchard, the show uses sound and video technology to look at class identity and speech; the projection designs are by Will Duke.

The tour starts at West Yorkshire Playhouse and then visits Warwick Arts Centre, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Leicester Curve Studio, Cheltenham Everyman Theatre, Bath Theatre Royal and Oxford Playhouse.

Silver Lining - tour starts 8 February - world première

New comedy by Sandi Toksvig Silver Lining is part of Rachel Tackley's last season as artistic director of English Touring Theatre. Tackley, who joins Chichester Festival Theatre, is succeeded by Richard Tywman.

Set in the Silver Retirement Home, Silver Lining sees five elderly ladies take matters into their own hands as storm floods rise around them.

The cast is made up of Sheila Reid, Rachel Davies, Keziah Joseph, Maggie McCarthy, Joanna Munro and Amanda Walker.

Silver Lining is a co-production with Rose Theatre Kingston; it opens there on 8 February then visits New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, Oxford Playhouse, Cambridge Arts Theatre, New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, York Theatre Royal and The Lowry, Salford.

The Machine Stops – tour starts 10 February

An adaptation of the chilling short story written by E M Forster, The Machine Stops, is to tour following its opening at York Theatre Royal, where the play premièred last year.

Forster also wrote A Passage to India and Howard’s End, both made into Oscar winning films.

The Machine Stops has been adapted for the stage by Neil Duffield and is directed by Juliet Forster. The composer is John Foxx.

The Machine Stops plays York Theatre Royal then tours to Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham; The Broadway Theatre, Letchworth; Jackson’s Lane, London; Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds; Mercury Theatre, Colchester; Cast, Doncaster; Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, Northern Stage, Newcastle; and the Belgrade Theatre Coventry. The production will also visit Italy in late February.