Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre will produce a selection of shows in spring 2017 in partnership with “some of the leading theatre companies, writers and directors”.
One of the highlights will be a new musical version of the Eric Idle book The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat. The work is being adapted by Dougal Irvine.
Reflecting the fact that Monty Python staged its first live show at the Belgrade in 1970, Eric Idle said, “I love the Belgrade because it’s where we first performed Monty Python live on stage for three sold-out midnight shows.”
The Belgrade’s artistic director Hamish Glen will direct The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat which will run in the B2 auditorium from Saturday 18 February until Saturday 4 March. It is a co-production with Sell A Door Theatre Company.
The Belgrade and Tamasha Theatre Company will get together to produce a new drama, Made in India by Satinder Chohan. It tells the story of a woman whose trip to a surrogacy clinic in Gujarat is her last hope of becoming a mother. It runs in B2 from Tuesday 24 January until Saturday 4 February.
A new musical adaptation inspired by Federico Fellini’s Oscar-winning masterpiece La Strada will première in Coventry before going on a UK tour. It will play on the main stage from Saturday 11 until 18 February.
Kirsten Childs’s coming-of-age story The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, which started life off-Broadway, takes a satirical look at how women have been defined by others and themselves from the 1960s to the modern day. This Belgrade and Theatre Royal Stratford East production runs from Wednesday 5 until Saturday 15 April.
Back by “popular demand”, Phizzical’s Bring on the Bollywood returns to the B2 stage from Saturday 6 until 13 May.
Visiting shows include the stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel Running Wild from 22 until 25 February, family-friendly opera Ulla’s Odyssey inspired by Homer’s Odyssey from 28 until 30 March, Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox from 18 until 22 April, The Play That Goes Wrong from 23 until 28 January, Peter James’s detective thriller Not Dead Enough from 27 March until 1 April and Jodie Prenger in Shirley Valentine from 6 until 10 June.
The Belgrade has also announced that Cinderella will be its 2017 panto.