Midlands productions

Published: 19 April 2014
Reporter: Steve Orme

Philip Cairns as Max Halliday and Christopher Timothy as Inspector Hubbard in Dial M for Murder at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham from Tuesday until Saturday
Happy Days – A New Musical at Birmingham Hippodrome from Tuesday until Saturday Credit: Paul Coltas
War Correspondents is staged in The Door at Birmingham REP from Thursday until Saturday

Bobby Davro is Smee and Dani Harmer plays Wendy in the Easter panto Peter Pan in the Guildhall, Derby on Monday and Tuesday.

The first tour of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap—the longest running show of any kind in the history of British theatre—stops off at Derby Theatre from Monday until Saturday.

Reaction Theatre Makers’ national tour of FishHead, a “highly visual piece” which is “an original story that moves and uplifts”, visits the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton on Tuesday and Artrix, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire on Saturday.

Christopher Timothy stars in Frederick Knott’s “intense and darkly gripping thriller” Dial M for Murder at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham from Tuesday until Saturday.

Paul Michael Glaser wishes he were a rich man in Fiddler on the Roof at Derngate, Northampton from Tuesday until Saturday.

Featuring Heidi Range, Ben Freeman and Cheryl Baker, Happy Days – A New Musical which is on its first UK tour says “goodbye grey skies, hello blue” at Birmingham Hippodrome from Tuesday until Saturday.

The Russian Ice stars adaptation of J M Barrie’s story about the boy who never grew up, Peter Pan on Ice skates into Lichfield Garrick from Tuesday until Saturday.

Union Theatre sails into Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry with an all-male version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore from Tuesday until Saturday.

Birmingham Opera Company stages a new production of Musorgsky’s KHOVANSKYGATE: A National Enquiry as part of the UK-Russia Year of Culture 2014 in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham on Tuesday, Thursday, Monday 28, Wednesday 30 April and Friday 2 May.

A new play about the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Townsend Productions’ We Will Be Free!, which outlines how Dorset farm labourers were transported to Australia for forming a trades union in 1834, is liberated at Derby’s Guildhall Theatre on Wednesday.

A “razor sharp and slightly dark comic exploration of hopeless determination and the universal desire to win”, Made In China’s Gym Party races into the Studio at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Wednesday and Thursday.

Performing arts students decide whether they are Workshy in Andy Dobbs’s new play which comes through Write Track—a new writing programme at Mansfield Palace Theatre—and will be performed at Create Theatre, Mansfield on Wednesday and Thursday.

John McArdle, Andrew Dunn and Coventry Festival Band take to the Coventry Belgrade stage in the touring production of Brassed Off, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike, from Wednesday until Saturday.

BAFTA-winning writer John Godber puts the education system under the microscope in Teechers at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme from Wednesday until Saturday.

Olympic champion and head judge on ITV’s Dancing on Ice, Robin Cousins has “hand-picked the greatest ice skaters from around the globe” for his new show ICE which glides into Wolverhampton Grand from Wednesday until Sunday.

Corby Young Dancers and Corby Young Actors present Corby Young Artists Double Bill at The Core at Corby Cube, Northamptonshire on Thursday and Friday.

Helen Chadwick and Steven Hoggett’s War Correspondents, a “song theatre performance” based on interviews with journalists covering Iraq, Chechnya, Georgia, Afghanistan and Bosnia, is broadcast in The Door at Birmingham REP from Thursday until Saturday.

International Dance Festival, Birmingham gets under way this week, with some of the highlights being Birmingham Royal Ballet’s presentation of Alexander Whitley’s Kin, Kit Holder’s Quatrain and Sir Frederick Ashton’s Les Rendezvous on Thursday and Friday and Kin, Quatrain and Sir Frederick Ashton’s Façade on Saturday.

A multimedia show in response to the riots of August 2011, 366 Days of Kindness is at Derby Theatre Studio on Friday.

Andy Field and Ira Brand’s show about love, romance and “battlefields, power cuts and power ballads”, Put Your Sweet Hand in Mine charms its way into the Studio at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Friday.

Private James Boyce takes the audience in Derby Theatre’s Studio on a “magical, haunting journey through the events surrounding the Christmas truce” during the Great War in Our Friends, the Enemy on Saturday.

Lesley Joseph stars in Hot Flush!, “more fun than joining a gym and cheaper than botox”, at the Regent Theatre, Stoke on Saturday.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats continues to purr at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall until Saturday.

Northampton’s Royal and Derngate continues to stage the world première of Tamsin Oglesby’s adaptation of Georges Feydeau’s farce Every Last Trick until Saturday 10 May.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Henry IV Parts I and II continue until Saturday 6 September while in the Swan Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s The Roaring Girl continues until Tuesday 30 September.

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