Northampton’s Royal and Derngate is offering “a bumper crop of in-house productions and a host of visiting West End hits” in its summer and autumn programme.
Shakespeare’s best-loved comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream ends the Comedy Gold season from Friday 19 April until Saturday 11 May. Director Gary Sefton sets the action in Edwardian England and promises a mischievous take on Shakespeare’s text.
Brian Friel’s award-winning play Dancing at Lughnasa, directed by Richard Beecham, waltzes into Northampton from Friday 24 May until Saturday, 15 June.
The theatrical première of To Sir, With Love, E R Braithwaite’s inspirational story of a black Cambridge graduate who takes up his first teaching post in a tough East End school, runs from Friday 6 until Saturday 28 September.
This stage adaptation by Ayub Khan Din (East Is East) is peppered with songs of the late 1940s. After its opening in Northampton it will go on a national tour.
In addition to these in-house productions, Royal and Derngate will play host to top West End shows, with a visit of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap from Monday 18 until Saturday 23 March.
Cole Porter’s High Society, with Sophie Bould, Michael Praed and Daniel Boys, stops off in Northampton from Tuesday 9 until Saturday 13 April.
The three original stars of TV classic Birds of a Feather, including Northampton’s own Lesley Joseph, are reunited onstage from Tuesday 30 April until Saturday 4 May.
Soul Sister, inspired by the music, life and times of Ike and Tina Turner, takes to the stage from Monday 6 until Saturday 11 May.
Sebastian Faulks’s story of love, courage and sacrifice in the Great War, Birdsong, visits from Monday 13 until Saturday 18 May.
Paying tribute to the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, New Jersey Nights is in Northampton from Monday 10 to Saturday 15 June.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats returns to Royal and Derngate for a week from Monday 30 September.
Suspense, secrets and red herrings abound in the Agatha Christie Theatre Company’s new production of her whodunnit, Go Back for Murder, from Monday 21 to Saturday 26 October.
A new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park follows from Monday 28 October until Saturday 2 November.
Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 are remembered in Thriller Live from Monday, 28 October until Saturday, 2 November and another musical icon is celebrated in Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story between Monday 11 and Saturday 16 November.