Midlands productions

Published: 26 February 2017
Reporter: Steve Orme

Aakash Odedra Company who will showcase contemporary dance in Dance: Sampled at Birmingham Hippodrome
Anton Cross as Boy in good dog in the Foyle Studio at mac Birmingham Credit: Wasi Daniju
Chloe Harris (Betty), Aisling Loftus (Joan), Vicky McClure (Sandra), Esther Coles (Mary) and George Boden (Johnny) in Touched at Nottingham Playhouse Credit: Robert Day

Stories of women who have experienced pregnancy and abortion are told in 20 Stories High’s I Told My Mother I Was Going on an R.E. Trip..., said to be “funny, frank, moving and about as far from a worthy sexual health lecture as is imaginable”, at mac Birmingham on Monday.

Kara Tointon plays Bella Manningham and Keith Allen is Detective Rough in Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight which tours to Malvern Theatres from Monday until Saturday.

Alexandra Burke is Deloris Van Cartier in Leicester Curve’s new production of the hit musical comedy Sister Act, directed by Craig Revel Horwood, which is at Wolverhampton Grand from Monday until Saturday.

Fifth Word’s production of Jane Upton’s All the Little Lights which tells the story of three girls slipping through the cracks in society continues in The Door at Birmingham REP until Tuesday.

The Touring Consortium Theatre Company presentation of the Birmingham REP production of Meera Syal’s Anita And Me, adapted by Tanika Gupta and featuring Shobna Gulati as Daljit, visits Cheltenham Everyman from Tuesday until Saturday.

The annual dance festival at Stoke’s Regent Theatre, 017 Dance, which is “the biggest” in its 16-year history, runs at the venue from Tuesday until Saturday.

Apollo Theatre Company celebrates the ground-breaking radio comedy series of the 1960s, Round the Horne, at the Victoria Hall, Stoke on Wednesday.

Amina Khayyam Dance uses dance-theatre combining European mime movements with Kathak “to explore indiscriminate abuse and violent attacks on women” in A Thousand Faces at mac Birmingham on Wednesday and Thursday.

Set in the Nottinghamshire coalfields against the backdrop of World War I, the musical The Same Sky, with story by Tim Harvey and lyrics by Phil Baggaley, returns to the Guildhall Theatre, Derby from Thursday until Saturday.

Kolbrún Björt Sigfúsdóttir and Emily Carding adapt Shakespeare’s Richard III as a “bold and engaging” one-woman show in a Brite Theater presentation in the Neville Studio at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday.

Birmingham Hippodrome invites people to sample a diverse range of dance styles including Latin, ballet, kathak, hip hop and contemporary in Dance: Sampled on Friday and Saturday.

When The Eye Has Gone by Dougie Blaxland, which tells about the life of Colin Milburn—the cricketing legend who was one of England’s most unlikely sporting heroes—should bowl over audiences in the Studio at Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham on Friday and Saturday and Derby Theatre on Sunday.

A “personal story of the ups and downs of what it means to serve you—the great British public” is recounted in Workshy, written and performed by Katy Baird, in the Studio at Derby Theatre on Saturday.

Arinzé Kene’s good dog, which chronicles Britain’s multicultural communities and the everyday injustices that drive people to take back control, visits the Foyle Studio at mac Birmingham on Saturday.

Two Nottingham actresses, Vicky McClure and Aisling Loftus, team up in the 40th anniversary revival of Stephen Lowe’s play Touched which continues at Nottingham Playhouse until Saturday.

The stage adaptation of Eric Idle’s The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat continues at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry until Saturday.

Black Country actress Josie Lawrence returns to Birmingham REP alongside Trevor Fox in Eugène Ionesco’s “brilliant, absurdist” play Amédée which continues until Saturday 11 March.

Willy Russell’s uplifting story of self-discovery Educating Rita, a co-production between Derby Theatre and Octagon Theatre Bolton, continues at Derby Theatre until Saturday 11 March.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, the first production in the RSC’s Chinese translations project, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s Snow in Midsummer, about a young girl who is framed for a crime she did not commit, continues in the Swan Theatre until Saturday 25 March (press night Thursday 2 March).

*Some links, including Amazon, Stageplays.com, Bookshop.org, ATG Tickets, LOVEtheatre, BTG Tickets, Ticketmaster, LW Theatres and QuayTickets, are affiliate links for which BTG may earn a small fee at no extra cost to the purchaser.

Are you sure?