What's on in the Midlands

Published: 24 February 2013
Reporter: Steve Orme

Charlotte Peters and Richard Ede in The 39 Steps at Northampton Royal from Monday until Saturday Credit: Dan Tsantilis
Custom/Practice's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Nottingham Playhouse from Tuesday until Saturday
Colin Baker in The Woman in White at Lichfield Garrick from Tuesday until Saturday

Co-Opera Co will perform German composer Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at Buxton Opera House on Monday.

Ellen Kent’s production of Puccini’s Tosca is at Northampton’s Derngate on Monday.

Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller The 39 Steps tours to Northampton’s Royal from Monday until Saturday.

Paines Plough presents Kate Tempest’s Wasted, “a play about life, love and losing your mind”, at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton on Tuesday.

Neil Gore and Fine Time Fontayne bring Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists to life at Buxton Opera House on Tuesday.

Custom/Practice recreates its 2012 Edinburgh Festival production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Nottingham Playhouse from Tuesday until Saturday.

Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph take to the Belgrade Theatre stage when Birds of a Feather starts a new tour in Coventry from Tuesday until Saturday.

Colin Baker, Peter Amory, Neil Stacy and Karen Ford are among the cast in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White at Lichfield Garrick from Tuesday until Saturday.

Michael Praed, Carolyn Pickles, Daniel Boys and Sophie Bould head the cast of Cole Porter’s High Society at Wolverhampton Grand from Tuesday until Saturday.

The Sheffield Theatres production of Simon Beaufoy’s The Full Monty tours to Birmingham Hippodrome from Tuesday until Saturday.

Audiences won’t be able to take their eyes off Jersey Nights which celebrates the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons at Curve, Leicester from Tuesday until Saturday.

Gonzo Moose asks What the Dickens?—The Misadventures of Charles Dickens in its comedy, which features three actors playing more than 20 roles, at Artrix, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire on Wednesday.

Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic hosts An Evening with Pam Ayres on Wednesday.

An “irreverent romp through all 14 operettas in 90 hilarious topsy-turvy minutes”, Gilbert and Sullivan Abridged visits Buxton Opera House on Wednesday.

Chapter 4 Youth Theatre Company returns to Mansfield Palace Theatre with Douglas Maxwell’s Too Fast, one of the National Theatre's Connections 2011 plays, on Thursday.

“Using puppetry, objects, performers and music”, The Ding Foundation presents Hanging by a Thread at mac, Birmingham on Thursday.

Derby’s Assembly Rooms gets a touch of the Essence of Ireland on Thursday.

Zoie Kennedy from ITV’s The Royal appears in Marc Camoletti’s Boeing Boeing at Buxton Opera House from Thursday until Saturday.

The police and members of the public are warned to be on the lookout for two men dressed in black hats, black ties and sunglasses when The Blues Brothers... Approved visits Stoke’s Regent Theatre from Thursday until Saturday.

Hush Hush Theatre Company stages Oh What a Lovely War which “combines movement, music and satire to create a chronicle of the Great War” in Derby Theatre Studio from Thursday until Saturday.

A group of late-19th century German students take a journey from adolescence to adulthood in Northampton Royal and Derngate Youth Theatre’s production of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening in the Underground, Northampton from Thursday until Saturday.

Birmingham company Kindle Theatre will merge rock, metal and soul songs in a “drastic retelling of the ancient story of Clytemnestra presented through original music, vocalscapes and stark imagery” in The Furies at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton on Friday.

One man goes in search of “adventure, freedom and a piece of the good life but soon finds that the reality is no picnic” in Alaska, presented by Black Fish, at Worksop’s Acorn Theatre on Friday.

Toby Hadoke’s sequel to his Moths Ate my Doctor Who Scarf comedy, My Stepson Stole my Sonic Screwdriver visits Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre on Saturday.

The première of Philip Pullman’s children’s novel I Was A Rat! continues at the Old Rep Theatre, Birmingham, until Saturday.

Audiences at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal will have the time of their life when Dirty Dancing continues until Saturday.

Rohan McCullough’s one-woman show based on the life and work of Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth is at Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre Studio next Sunday.

Amanda Whittington’s new work about Ruth Ellis—the last woman to be hanged in Britain—continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday 9 March.

Frances Ruffelle continues in the title role in in Pam Gems’s Piaf at Curve, Leicester until Saturday 16 March.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, in the Swan The Orphan of Zhao, sometimes referred to as the Chinese Hamlet and tracing its origins to the 4th century BC, continues until Thursday 28 March, Ian McDiarmid takes the title role in Mark Ravenhill’s new translation of Brecht's A Life of Galileo until Saturday 30 March while the world première of Adrian Mitchell’s adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's play Boris Godunov also continues until 30 March.

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