Midlands productions

Published: 22 January 2017
Reporter: Steve Orme

The Play That Goes Wrong at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
Graeme Brookes (Alan), Kerry Bennett (Dawn) and Alastair Whatley (Oliver) in Invincible at Northampton Royal
Jack Shepherd and Clive Mantle in The Verdict at Malvern Theatres

Celebrating the lives and career of Simon and Garfunkel and featuring a cast of actor-musicians, The Simon and Garfunkel Story is told at the Guildhall Theatre, Derby on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mischief Theatre visits the Belgrade, Coventry with The Play That Goes Wrong from Tuesday until Saturday.

Telling the “captivating” tale of how of one of Britain’s greatest bands, the Kinks, rose to stardom, Sunny Afternoon swings into the Theatre Royal, Nottingham from Tuesday until Saturday.

Produced by the Original Theatre Company, Torben Betts’s comedy Invincible, about a couple who decide to downsize and shift their middle-class London lifestyle to a small town in the north of England, tours to Northampton Royal from Tuesday until Saturday.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of pirates and adventure is brought to life in Rumpus Theatre’s “hysterical” new version of Treasure Island at the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield from Tuesday until Sunday.

Clive Mantle, Jack Shepherd and Richard Walsh feature in Middle Ground Theatre Company’s world première of courtroom thriller The Verdict by Barry Reed, adapted by Margaret May Hobbs, at Malvern Theatres from Wednesday until Saturday.

Coventry-based Theatre Absolute and Moving Spaces present Traum, “a story of new arrivals, migration and dreams told through blistering choreography, experimental breaking and vivid narrative”, at Déda, Derby on Thursday.

Strictly Come Dancing professional Brendan Cole hosts a “spectacular” production featuring guest dancers, singers and a 14-piece band in All Night Long at Wolverhampton Grand on Thursday.

Talking Scarlet performs William Fairchild’s thriller The Sound of Murder at Buxton Opera House on Thursday and Friday.

Anton du Beke and Erin Boag, “the nation’s favourite ballroom couple”, take their new show Anton and Erin: Swing Time to Derngate, Northampton on Thursday and Friday and the Symphony Hall, Birmingham on Saturday.

Two performers—one Greek, one French—dance and shout, cry and sing, agree and disagree, about life in a “darkly comic look at the EU's founding ideals and what got lost along the way” in Eurohouse by Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas in The Door at Birmingham REP from Thursday until Saturday, while in The Studio REP associate director Alexander Zeldin and his company consider the strains on families who are placed in temporary accommodation in Love from Thursday until Saturday 11 February.

Birmingham-based dance company ACE takes its new production Ten which “explores humanity’s urge to reach for the power of 10—the universal symbol of completion”—to Lichfield Garrick on Friday.

Haunted by curiosity, a young man attempts to piece together the ghost story of his childhood home in Jack Brittain’s I Used to Hear Footsteps in the Studio at Derby Theatre on Friday.

A new adaptation by New Vic artistic director Theresa Heskins of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen continues at the Newcastle-under-Lyme theatre-in-the-round until Saturday.

LipService Theatre Company explores the world of women writers, scribbling in secret or under pseudonyms, in Mr Darcy Loses the Plot at the Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton on Sunday.

John Barrowman, Steve McFadden, Danielle Hope, the Krankies, Jodie Prenger and Matt Slack are among the cast of Dick Whittington which continues at Birmingham Hippodrome until Sunday.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, in the Swan Theatre Blanche McIntyre directs The Two Noble Kinsmen, attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, which continues until Tuesday 7 February, the world première of Anders Lustgarten’s play The Seven Acts of Mercy continues until Friday 10 February and Aphra Behn’s The Rover continues until Saturday 11 February.

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