Midlands productions

Published: 18 May 2014
Reporter: Steve Orme

Chris Price as Milo and Philip Arditti as Yossarian in Catch-22 at Birmingham REP from Tuesday until Saturday Credit: Topher McGrillis
Barrie Rutter (John Farrar) and Emily Butterfield (Mary Farrar) in An August Bank Holiday Lark which is at Derby Theatre from Tuesday until Saturday Credit: Nobby Clark
I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire! which continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday

Keith Barron, Gwen Taylor and Neil Stacy reunite for Last of the Duty Free at Stoke’s Regent Theatre from Monday until Saturday.

Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story returns to Wolverhampton Grand from Monday until Saturday.

Birmingham Royal Ballet is at Buxton Opera House with a diverse programme including Quatrain, a new piece by the company’s dancer and choreographer Kit Holder, excerpts from Beauty and the Beast, and the piece which started Frederick Ashton’s career, Façade, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 tours to Birmingham REP from Tuesday until Saturday.

Birmingham Stage Company’s Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain is at Curve, Leicester from Tuesday until Saturday.

Northern Broadsides production of Deborah McAndrew’s An August Bank Holiday Lark visits Derby Theatre from Tuesday until Saturday.

International Dance Festival, Birmingham continues with Breakin’ Convention at Birmingham Hippodrome on Tuesday and Wednesday, B-Town, an outdoor production in Victoria Square from Wednesday until Saturday, Aerites with Planites at the Patrick Centre on Thursday and Friday, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui with MiLONGA at the Hippodrome on Friday and Saturday, Studies for C by Candoco Dance Company on The Village Green at 2 and 4PM on Saturday and DanceXchange and Shaun Parker Company’s presentation of Spill: A Playgound of Dance in Cannon Hill Park at 2PM on Sunday.

Warwick Arts Centre and China Plate stage Confirmation by Chris Thorpe and Rachel Chavkin, “about the gulf between beliefs that we can’t talk across, about the way we only choose to see the evidence that proves we’re right”, in the Studio at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Wednesday and Thursday.

A “love story put under the surgeon’s knife” which takes inspiration from a patient’s account of brain surgery during an experimental procedure in the early 20th century, Kindle Theatre’s A Journey Round My Skull makes an appointment at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton on Thursday.

Pasha Kovalev and Katya Virshilas take their ballroom and Latin show Stars of Strictly Come Dancing to The Core at Corby Cube on Thursday.

Bob Golding stars as “the man what brought us sunshine” in Morecambe at Buxton Opera House from Thursday until Saturday.

Vienna Festival Ballet performs Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at Lichfield Garrick from Thursday until Saturday.

Laura Lindsay and Peter Carruthers’s Hidden, a “darkly comic story of six people, their secrets and the intriguing puzzle of how they interweave and unravel in a modern urban world”, visits Derby Theatre’s Studio on Friday.

Written and performed by Tim Crouch, I, Malvolio re-imagines Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in the Studio at Curve, Leicester on Friday and Saturday.

As part of the Coventry Mysteries Festival, the city’s Belgrade hosts Engineer Theatre Collective’s award-winning piece of verbatim theatre, Missin,, on Friday and Saturday.

Caroline Parker appears in Nona Shepphard’s Signs of a Diva, a Graeae Theatre Company presentation, in the Studio at Derby Theatre on Saturday.

Avelia Moisey and Jill Neenan stage their two-woman show Ifs, Buts and Babies in the Studio at Lichfield Garrick on Saturday.

Circling the outskirts of Birmingham on the number 11 bus, two teenagers develop an unusual and unlikely friendship in Rachel De-lahay’s Circles which continues in The Door at Birmingham REP until Saturday.

Bob Eaton’s musical play I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire!, inspired by the stories of women who worked at a Staffordshire munitions factory, continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday.

European Arts Company looks back on The Trials of Oscar Wilde, based on the original words spoken in court, in the Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton on Sunday.

Stephen Blakeley, Laura Freeman and Sean O’Callaghan feature in Derby LIVE’s first in-house production since spring 2012, two one-act plays by Tim Elgood, The Dog House and Bare Words, collectively billed as Mad Dogs and an Englishman, which continue at Derby’s Guildhall Theatre until Saturday, 31 May.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Henry IV Parts I and II continue until Saturday 6 September while in the Swan Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s The Roaring Girl continues until Tuesday 30 September and Arden of Faversham continues until Thursday 2 October.

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