Midlands productions

Published: 10 May 2014
Reporter: Steve Orme

Charlotte Page (Mrs Pearce), Rachel Barry (Eliza) and Alistair McGowan (Higgins) in Pygmalion at Coventry’s Belgrade from Monday until Saturday Credit: Manuel Harlan
Gecko’s Institute at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry from Tuesday until Friday Credit: Richard Haughton
Sharon Small makes her Royal Shakespeare Company debut as Alice in Arden of Faversham which continues until 2 Otober

Theatrical Niche presents a new adaptation of Lorca’s tragedy Blood Wedding at Buxton Opera House on Monday.

Tales of her roles as Cathy Gale in The Avengers and Pussy Galore in the James Bond film Goldfinger will be part of Honor Blackman as Herself at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme on Monday.

Alistair McGowan and Rula Lenska star in the centenary year production of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion at the Belgrade, Coventry from Monday until Saturday.

Mischief Theatre Company stages The Play That Goes Wrong at Northampton Royal from Monday until Saturday.

Physical dance theatre company Gecko eturns to Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry with Institute, an “intimate, funny and revealing exploration of care”, from Tuesday until Friday.

Christopher Timothy features in Frederick Knott’s suspenseful murder mystery Dial M for Murder which tours to Birmingham REP from Tuesday until Saturday while the REP also welcomes Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful from Wednesday until Saturday at 11AM and 2PM.

Female-led theatre company The Chrysalis Collective performs William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in the Bear Pit Theatre at the United Reformed Church, Rother Street, Stratford from Tuesday until Saturday.

International Dance Festival, Birmingham continues with Luca Silvestrini’s Protein presenting Border Tales at the Patrick Centre from Tuesday until Saturday and Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures staging Lord of the Flies at Birmingham Hippodrome from Wednesday until Saturday.

The Let’s Dance International Festival takes place in the Studio at Leicester’s Curve, with Dance in Three Acts by Catherine Dénécy, Show of Hands by Freddie Opoku-Addaie and Silent Aria, a new collaboration featuring a musical score by Philip Herbert and theatrical choreography by Henri Oguike, danced by emerging artist Tara Lopez, on Wednesday and Thursday, and New York based FuturPointe Dance making their UK debut on Friday and Saturday.

The Palace Junior Youth Theatre returns to Mansfield’s Old Library Theatre with a new play especially written for them, George’s Smelly Socks by Marie Wragg, on Thursday and Friday.

That’ll Be The Day rocks Buxton Opera House on Thursday and Birmingham Town Hall on Saturday.

Second year theatre arts students at Derby Theatre perform Mike Bartlett’s new play 13, which depicts London on the brink of war, in Derby Theatre from Thursday until Saturday.

Andy Barrett’s new play The Second Minute, a Nottingham Playhouse production which explores the emotional impact of World War I on the ordinary men who became soldiers and the families they left behind, tours to the Terry O’Toole Theatre, North Hykeham, Lincolnshire on Thursday, Tennyson d'Eyncourt Memorial Hall, Tealby, Lincolnshire on Friday, Braunston and Brooke Village Hall, Rutland on Saturday and Century Theatre, Coalville, Leicestershire on Sunday.

Actor, pianist and singer Michael Lunts takes the little-known Noël Coward comedy, P&O 1930 to Lichfield Garrick on Friday.

An “edgy,moving and subversive one-man show laced with sharp humour tackling football’s last taboo”, Away From Home should hit the back of the net in Derby Theatre’s Studio on Friday.

Kaleidoscope Intermediate Theatre presents Roald Dahl’s The Witches in the Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton on Friday and Saturday.

Stephen Blakeley, Laura Freeman and Sean O’Callaghan feature in Derby LIVE’s first in-house production since spring 2012, two one-act plays by Tim Elgood, The Dog House and Bare Words, collectively billed as Mad Dogs and an Englishman, at Derby’s Guildhall Theatre from Friday until Saturday 31 May.

Arguably the greatest musical of all time, West Side Story continues at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham until Saturday.

The world première of the musical Water Babies, based on Charles Kingsley’s 1863 novel of the same name, continues at Leicester’s Curve until Saturday.

Circling the outskirts of Birmingham on the number 11 bus, two teenagers develop an unusual and unlikely friendship in Rachel De-lahay’s Circles which continues in The Door at Birmingham REP until Saturday 24 May.

Bob Eaton’s musical play I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire!, inspired by the stories of women who worked at a Staffordshire munitions factory, continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday 24 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 and Arden of Faversham continues until Thursday 2 October.

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