Midlands productions

Published: 28 April 2013
Reporter: Steve Orme

Noises Off at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal from Monday until Saturday
New Perspectives' Entertaining Angels premieres at Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham from Thursday until Saturday
A Midsummer Night's Dream continues on the Royal stage at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate until Saturday 11 May

Stoke’s Regent Theatre celebrates the greatest hits of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in New Jersey Nights from Monday until Wednesday.

Willy Russell’s legendary tale of the Johnstone twins, Blood Brothers, which features Marti Pellow, tours to the Grand, Wolverhampton from Monday until Saturday.

Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre invites you to an evening with Jake and Elwood Blues at their live show, The Blues Brothers—The Smash Hit, from Monday until Saturday.

The Old Vic and West-End award-winning comedy Noises Off by Michael Frayn visits Nottingham’s Theatre Royal from Monday until Saturday.

UK Touring Theatre presents the world premiere of a new English translation of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie at Buxton Opera House on Tuesday.

All three of the original leading cast members, Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph, reunite for Birds of a Feather at Northampton’s Derngate from Tuesday until Saturday.

Toyah Willcox, writer Julie Coombe and former Hollyoaks actress Sarah Jane Buckley are Hormonal Housewives at Mansfield Palace Theatre on Wednesday.

Foundation degree students from Worcestershire’s New College will present Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors at Artrix, Bromsgrove, on Wednesday and Thursday.

Kerry Ellis and Rory Taylor will celebrate a musical’s 20 successful years in the Rent 20th Anniversary Concert at Stoke’s Regent Theatre on Thursday.

The première of East Midlands touring company New Perspectives’s Entertaining Angels by Brendan Murray, a "humorous and touching look at the role of the Church in contemporary village life and what it really means to be a Christian in the 21st century", will be held at Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham from Thursday until Saturday before the play tours to rural venues and arts centres.

John Godber’s new comedy Losing the Plot—a John Godber Company and Theatre Royal Wakefield presentation—visits Buxton Opera House from Thursday until Saturday.

Earthfall “blazes a trail from Warhol to Kerouac and Dylan Thomas to Patti Smith, where several stories, true and false, interplay through radical dance, live music and film” in Chelsea Hotel at mac, Birmingham on Friday.

Lab Monkey Productions explores the “sneaky science” behind “superhero” powers in 6% Superhuman in the Studio at Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre on Saturday.

Two “strapping Australians” feature in Puppetry of the Penis at The Core at Corby Cube on Saturday.

Chekhov’s rarely performed first play Platonov, which has been adapted, translated and directed by Helena Kaut-Howson and given the new title Sons Without Fathers, continues in the B2 auditorium at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry until Saturday.

Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, starring Earl Carpenter as the Phantom and Katie Hall as Christine, continues at Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday.

European Arts Company returns to the Studio at Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre with Four Farces, an evening of one-act farces from the Victorian stage—A Young Lady, Box and Cox, An Unwarranted Intrusion and Duel in the Dark—on Sunday.

Gary Sefton’s production of A Midsummer Night's Dream which transposes the action to Edwardian England continues on the Royal stage at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate until Saturday 11 May.

Theresa Heskins, artistic director of Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic, continues to stage her “biggest challenge yet”, Laura Eason’s adaptation of the Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days, at the New Vic until Saturday 11 May.

Nottingham Playhouse and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse’s European première of Khaled Hosseini’s first novel The Kite Runner continues in Nottingham until Saturday 18 May.

Derby Theatre’s first professional-produced show, Lee Hall’s Cooking With Elvis, continues until 18 May.

Ceri Dupree returns to Curve in a new production of “Leicester’s favourite musical” Hot Stuff which continues until Sunday 26 May.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Hamlet and As You Like It both continue until Saturday 28 September while in the Swan Tanika Gupta’s The Empress which offers a glimpse into the world and character of Queen Victoria continues until Saturday (4 May).

*Some links, including Amazon, Stageplays.com, Bookshop.org, ATG Tickets, LOVEtheatre, BTG Tickets, Ticketmaster, The Ticket Factory, 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?