What's on in the Midlands

Published: 24 April 2022
Reporter: Steve Orme

Sam Archer (Edgar Linton), Ash Hunter (Heathcliff) and Lucy McCormick (Cathy) in Wuthering Heights at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham Credit: Steve Tanner
Laura Evelyn (Isabel Brown) and Bettrys Jones (Ellen Wilkinson) in Red Ellen at Nottingham Playhouse Credit: Pamela Raith
Mark Quartley as Henry Vi in The Wars of the Roses in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Credit: Ellie Kurttz

Dallas legend Patrick Duffy, Linda Purl and Gray O’ Brien appear in Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert’s “gripping” psychological thriller Catch Me if You Can at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham from Monday until Saturday.

Ballet Black presents two new works as part of its 20th anniversary celebration at Derby Theatre on Tuesday.

Emma Rice transforms Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights into a “powerful and uniquely theatrical experience” at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham from Tuesday until Saturday.

Strictly Come Dancing’s 2021 champion Giovanni Pernice says This Is Me at Derngate, Northampton on Wednesday.

The “UK’s leading contemporary dance company” 2Faced Dance stages a “triple bill of emotionally charged, lung-busting physicality”, EVERYTHING (but the girl) at the Courtyard, Hereford on Wednesday.

Grimeboy, the new play by Birmingham poet laureate Casey Bailey, raves on in The Door at Birmingham Rep from Wednesday until Saturday.

Fierylight and Little Angel Theatre’s musical adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s book The Smartest Giant in Town visits Uppingham Theatre, Rutland on Thursday and Friday.

Akram Khan's Jungle Book Reimagined, a new show based on the story by Rudyard Kipling, dances into Birmingham Hippodrome on Friday and Saturday.

Buxton Opera House showcases local talent in its production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd—The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Paul Kerryson, from Friday until Sunday.

Leicester’s annual dance festival Let’s Dance International Frontiers, featuring “high-quality dance that celebrates diversity and intersectional identities”, takes place at various venues from Friday until Sunday 8 May.

All-female company the Gramophones performs Aidy the Awesome, aimed at three- to eight-year-olds and their families, at Curve, Leicester on Saturday.

John Godber and his wife Jane Thornton appear in Happy Jack, the play he wrote when he was 25 which “captures the ups and downs of ordinary working-class family life—at the coal face, in the pit village, on donkeys and by the fireside”, which continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday.

Caroline Bird’s new play Red Ellen which tells the story of Ellen Wilkinson, the “revolutionary Labour MP who fought with an unstoppable, reckless energy for a better world”, continues at Nottingham Playhouse until Saturday.

Henry VI: Rebellion which “hurtles through one of the most turbulent periods in English history” continues in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford until Saturday 28 May while The Wars of the Roses, a “thrilling climax to Shakespeare’s three-part Henry VI saga of nationhood and power”, continues until Saturday 4 June.

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