What's on in the Midlands

Published: 19 May 2019
Reporter: Steve Orme

Ellis Morris (Lelani) and Bethan Cullinane (Alice) in Rotterdam in the Studio at Birmingham REP Credit: Helen Maybanks
10 Soldiers at Birmingham Hippodrome
Jade Byrne in Pricks in the Studio at Derby Theatre

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s Zog comes to life at the Core at Corby Cube, Northamptonshire from Monday until Wednesday.

Paula Hawkins’s thriller The Girl on the Train, adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel and featuring Samantha Womack as Rachel Watson, pulls into the Theatre Royal, Nottingham from Monday until Saturday while Craig Revel Horwood plays Miss Hannigan in the musical Annie in the Royal Concert Hall, also from Monday until Saturday.

A bittersweet comedy about gender, sexuality and being a long way from home, Jon Brittain’s Rotterdam plucks up Dutch courage to reveal itself in the Studio at Birmingham REP from Monday until Wednesday and Malvern Theatres from Thursday until Saturday.

Blackeyed Theatre takes Nick Lane’s adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes novel, Sherlock Holmes – The Sign of Four, to Mansfield Palace Theatre on Tuesday.

A portrait of army life “told through intense athletic dance theatre”, the Rosie Kay Dance Company’s 10 Soldiers has its première at Birmingham Hippodrome on Tuesday.

Choreographer and performer Seeta Patel re-imagines Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in the classical Indian dance style Bharatanatyam at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham on Tuesday.

French theatre company Victoria Thierrée Chaplin’s Bells and Spells makes one of only two UK appearances at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Packed with “cauldrons full of original songs, magic and mayhem”, Emma Reeves’s adaptation of Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch flies into Birmingham Hippodrome from Wednesday until Sunday.

The “greatest songs in musical theatre, all performed entirely live by some of the best musical performers working today” can be heard in Beyond the Barricade at Mansfield Palace Theatre on Thursday.

Created for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, The Isle of Brimsker is a Frozen Light presentation at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham on Thursday and Friday.

Staffordshire’s Fired Up Theatre Company strains at the leash to stage Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles at Lichfield Garrick on Friday.

Bollylicious takes a “rollercoaster trip across India from royal Rajasthan all the way to funky Mumbai” and features a diversity of dance forms in Bombay Express which races into the Albany Theatre, Coventry on Friday.

Jade Byrne developed type 1 diabetes when she was four and estimates she has had more than 70,000 pricks (of the medical kind) which she talks about in Pricks in the Studio at Derby Theatre on Friday; the theatre’s artistic director Sarah Brigham co-directs an adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, performed by University of Derby Contemporary Theatre students, on Friday and Saturday; and Silent Uproar presents A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) in the Studio on Saturday.

Rumpus Theatre Company takes Richard Layton's adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's The Devil's Bride to the New Theatre Royal, Lincoln on Friday and Saturday.

Young performers from Buxton Opera House tackle the musical Oliver! on the main stage from Friday until Sunday.

A diverse cast of deaf and hearing actors follow the story of Mathilda, a grey sheep whose mind is always full of questions, in Mathilda and the Orange Balloon, adapted from a book by Randall de Sève, at Touchbase Pears, Birmingham on Saturday.

Shakespeare’s Richard III, a Headlong, Bristol Old Vic and Alexandra Palace with Royal and Derngate and Oxford Playhouse production, continues in the Royal, Northampton until Saturday.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford a gender-swapped version of The Taming of the Shrew, set in a 1590s matriarchal England in which women hold all the power, and Kimberley Sykes’s “fierce, exhilarating version” of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy As You Like It both continue in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre until Saturday 31 August, while in the Swan Theatre, Alexandra Gilbreath plays Lady Brute in John Vanbrugh’s comedy The Provoked Wife which runs until Thursday 7 September.

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