What's on in the Midlands

Published: 27 January 2013
Reporter: Steve Orme

Farm Boy is at Buxton Opera House on Monday Credit: Robert Day
Jane Eyre is at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton on Tuesday and Wednesday
Jo Stone-Fewings and Tara Fitzgerald continue in The Winter's Tale at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre until 23 February Credit: Sheila Burnett

Nottinghamshire-based company New Perspectives tours Farm Boy, Michael Morpurgo’s sequel to War Horse, to Buxton Opera House on Monday.

Paul Bown, Clive Mantle, Chris McAlphy, Cliff Parisi, William Troughton and Michelle Dotrice bring the celebrated Ealing comedy The Ladykillers to life at Wolverhampton Grand from Monday until Saturday.

The 40th anniversary party production of The Rocky Horror Show gets into a time warp at the New Alexandra, Birmingham from Monday until Saturday.

Hull Truck Theatre’s new version of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, adapted by Laura Turner, visits the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Derby theatre company Oddsocks relates The Adventures of Robin Hood at the city’s Guildhall from Tuesday until Friday.

Little Angel Theatre and Kneehigh’s production of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings visits Curve, Leicester from Tuesday until Saturday.

Rufus Hound plays Francis Henshall in the National Theatre’s tour of One Man, Two Guvnors which stops off at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal from Tuesday until Saturday.

Ian Dickens Productions stages Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced, featuring Dean Gaffney, Gemma Bissix and Katy Manning, at Derby Theatre from Tuesday until Saturday.

Rugby-born Arthur Bostrom appears in Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong at Coventry’s Belgrade from Tuesday until Saturday.

Eight singers and dancers offer “the best of Broadway and the West End” in Back to Broadway at Buxton Opera House on Wednesday.

Cheek by Jowl returns to Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry with Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi from Wednesday until Saturday.

Debbie Tracey takes her one-woman comedy, Death of a Beauty Saleswoman, featuring “larger-than-life megalomaniac Jacqueline Jones, a woman seemingly without compassion or any sense of decency, armed only with blonde ambition, a total lack of morals and a terrifying arsenal of high-pressure selling techniques”, to the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton on Friday.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo returns to Birmingham Hippodrome with “a fantastic programme, a lorry load of costume changes and lashings of diva attitude” on Friday and Saturday.

Staffordshire theatre company Opus is at Derby’s Guildhall with John Christopher Wood’s Elsie and Norm’s Macbeth on Saturday.

A “passionate tale of the mad, bad but brilliant poet and some of the women for whom his beautiful, pale face would be their fate”, Byron Beloved is a Lucky Fin presentation at Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre Studio Theatre on Saturday.

A stage adaptation of Roald Dahl's first children's book James and the Giant Peach continues at Birmingham Old Rep until Saturday.

M6 Theatre Company’s new play aimed at children aged five and above, Mavis Sparkle, written and directed by Gilly Baskeyfield and Dot Wood, is at The REP at Birmingham Library Theatre on Saturday and Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham on Sunday.

Alan Ayckbourn’s Joking Apart—the first Ayckbourn Nottingham Playhouse has produced in more than a decade—continues until Saturday 16 February.

Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic continues to stage Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads—with Conrad Nelson in A Chip in the Sugar, Roberta Kerr in Cream Cracker under the Settee and Hazel Maycock in Lady of Letters—until Saturday 16 February.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, Tara Fitzgerald continues in The Winter’s Tale until Saturday 23 February (press night Wednesday 30 January); in the Swan The Orphan of Zhao continues until Thursday 28 March while the world première of Adrian Mitchell’s adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's play Boris Godunov continues until Saturday 30 March.

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