Birmingham REP’s initiative BOLDtext Playwrights, which allows West Midlands writers to test their work in front of audiences, will present Disorder, staged readings of four short plays by Stephen Jackson, Sayan Kent, Vanessa Oakes and Julia Wright, with subjects including depression, OCD, narcissism and hoarding, which will be performed by Miriam Edwards and Greg Hobbs in The Door at the REP on Monday.
Only days before the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Steve Nallon plays the UK’s first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Jonathan Maitland’s debut play Dead Sheep at Birmingham REP from Monday until Saturday.
There will be nothing to hide when Gary Lucy, Andrew Dunn, Louis Emerick, Chris Fountain, Anthony Lewis and Kai Owen strip off for The Full Monty at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham from Monday until Saturday.
Written and directed by Elton Townend Jones and performed by Rebecca Vaughan, Dalloway, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s “celebrated map of hearts, minds and memories” which “offers a compellingly feminine response to the aftermath of the First World War”, visits the MET Studio at Stafford Gatehouse Theatre on Tuesday.
The UK’s number one rock ‘n’ roll variety production That’ll be the Day returns to Mansfield Palace Theatre on Tuesday.
Britain’s first all-black Hamlet, a Black Theatre Live production, tours to the Key Theatre, Peterborough on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Night Light by Nadia Davids, the debut production from Oxford-based Mandala Theatre “which centres on the gut-churning experience of two young people seeking asylum”, is at the Old Rep, Birmingham on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Paul Nicholls, Jack Ellis and Ben Onwukwe appear in Owen O’Neill and Dave Johns’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre from Tuesday until Saturday.
Gwen Taylor leads the cast in the Original Theatre Company’s presentation of Emelyn Williams’s psychological thriller Night Must Fall at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry from Wednesday until Saturday.
Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and Emily Carding’s adaptation of Richard III into a “bold and engaging one-woman show”, performed by Carding in a Brite Theater presentation, can be seen at Leicester’s pub theatre Upstairs at the Western on Thursday.
Adverse Camber stages The Shahnameh, written by Iranian poet Ferdowsi more than 1,000 years ago, which transports an audience into “the passion-filled world of heroic adventure and romance”, in the Foyle Studio at mac birmingham on Thursday.
John Godber’s take on the National Health Service as he investigates what we deserve and what we receive, This Might Hurt, makes an appointment with the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield from Thursday until Saturday.
Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs, a “furious, funny and violent dash through a friendship too close to survive”, visits The Door at Birmingham REP from Thursday until Saturday.
Inspired by the song “Glass Onion” which was John Lennon’s postscript to The Beatles, Lennon Through a Glass Onion takes to the Northampton Royal stage on Friday.
Immersion Theatre’s new touring production of R C Sherriff’s World War I play Journey’s End travels to Lichfield Garrick on Friday.
Jack Dean’s Nuketown, “an epic tale that animates an imaginary landscape with enormous amounts of Lego”, will be built in the Studio at Derby Theatre on Friday.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Nottingham for the first time in six years to perform Exodus by Rennie Harris, Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain Pas de Deux, Ronald K Brown’s Four Corners and Alvin Ailey’s Revelations in the Royal Concert Hall on Friday and Saturday.
Birmingham’s Blue Orange Theatre continues to present Frederick Knott’s Dial M for Murder until Saturday.
David Bintley’s world première of Shakespeare’s The Tempest for Birmingham Royal Ballet gets shipwrecked at Birmingham Hippodrome from Saturday until Saturday 8 October.
Jason Manford plays Caractacus Potts, Phill Jupitus is Lord Scrumptious and Baron Bomburst, Claire Sweeney plays Baroness Bomburst and Carrie Hope Fletcher is Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which continues at Northampton’s Derngate until Sunday.
Tom Wells’s comedy about marriage, families, making ends meet and dodgy plumbing, The Kitchen Sink, continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday 8 October.
Eccentric Nottinghamshire aristocrat William Cavendish-Bentinck, who hid himself away and was fascinated with tunnels, is the subject of Nick Wood’s adaptation of Mick Jackson’s novel The Underground Man which continues in the Neville Studio at Nottingham Playhouse until Saturday 8 October.
At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Gillian Bevan is the first woman to take on the role of British ruler Cymbeline which continues until Saturday 15 October and Antony Sher plays the title role in Gregory Doran’s production of King Lear which continues until Saturday 15 October; and in the Swan Theatre, Blanche McIntyre directs The Two Noble Kinsmen, attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, which continues until Tuesday 7 February while Aphra Behn’s The Rover continues until Saturday 11 February.