Midlands productions

Published: 3 September 2017
Reporter: Steve Orme

Jane Eyre at Birmingham REP
Private Lives at Malvern Theatres
John Lyons in Dial M for Murder at the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield

The National Theatre and Bristol Old Vic production of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre tours to Birmingham REP from Monday until Saturday 16 September.

The Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough production of Amelia Bullmore’s Di and Viv and Rose visits the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme from Tuesday until Saturday.

Heartbreak Productions has five shows at Bridge House Theatre, Warwick this week: Northanger Abbey on Tuesday and four which complete their summer tours at the theatre, the murder mystery Murder on the Terrace on Wednesday, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett on Thursday, Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew on Friday and David Walliams’s Billionaire Boy on Saturday.

London Classic Theatre’s new touring production of Noël Coward’s comedy masterpiece Private Lives opens at Malvern Theatres from Wednesday until Saturday.

John Lyons plays Inspector Hubbard in Tabs Productions’ Dial M for Murder by Frederick Knott at the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield from Thursday until Saturday.

Past principal performers from Les Misérables go Beyond the Barricade at Sandon Hall, Staffordshire on Friday.

Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ album New Boots and Panties, a new tour of the musical about the band, Reasons to be Cheerful, gets underway at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry on Friday and Saturday.

Four men reunite to mourn the loss of a close friend only to find that time and events have had a corrosive effect on this once tight-knit bunch in Hatched Theatre Company’s first project Hymns in the Studio at Derby Theatre on Friday and Saturday.

As previously announced, Jane Booker, Jolyon Coy, Ed Hughes, Carlyss Peer, Laura Rogers and Paul Shelley feature in the regional première of Sam Holcroft’s Rules for Living, an English Touring Theatre, Northampton Royal and Derngate and Rose Theatre Kingston production, which takes to the Northampton Royal stage from Friday until Saturday 30 September.

Jenny Wren Productions’ summer tour of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, adapted by Elise Heaven and Jenny Wicks, ends at Parabola Arts Centre, Cheltenham on Saturday.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Antony and Cleopatra continues until Thursday 7 September and Julius Caesar until Saturday 9 September; in the Swan Theatre, Oscar Wilde’s lyrical one-act play Salomé, marking 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, continues until Wednesday 6 September and Phil Porter’s new play Vice Versa (or the Decline and Fall of General Braggadocio at the hands of his canny servant Dexter and Terence the monkey) continues until Saturday 9 September.

Based on Khaled Hosseini’s novel and adapted by Matthew Spangler, The Kite Runner, which was first produced at Nottingham Playhouse in 2013, continues at the theatre until Saturday before going on a UK tour.

Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre and Citizens Theatre’s presentation of Faithful Ruslan—The Story of a Guard Dog, based on the cult novel by Georgi Vladimov, translated by Michael Glenny and adapted and directed by Helena Kaut-Howson, continues at the Belgrade until Saturday 16 September.

Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Boublil and Schönberg’s musical Miss Saigon continues at Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday 23 September.

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