What's on in the Midlands

Published: 11 June 2022
Reporter: Steve Orme

Hamlet the Comedy at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
Tom Butcher (Inspector Craddock) and Sarah Thomas (Miss Marple) in A Murder is Announced at Malvern Theatres
Boni Adeliyi as Camae and Luke Wilson as Dr Martin Luther King Jr in The Mountaintop at Nottingham Playhouse Credit: Geraint Lewis

Renowned for its “uniquely entertaining, comic adaptations of classic literature”, Oddsocks finds something is rotten and funny in the state of Denmark in Hamlet the Comedy at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry from Tuesday until Thursday.

Miss Marple visits Malvern Theatres when Middle Ground Theatre Company presents a classic mystery, A Murder is Announced, adapted by Leslie Darbon from Agatha Christie’s novel, from Tuesday until Saturday.

Actor, author, BBC One Show reporter and former MP Gyles Brandreth takes his show Break A Leg! which celebrates “all things theatrical” to the New Theatre Royal, Lincoln on Wednesday.

For his final opera, Wagner turned to the legend of the Holy Grail to create his five-hour masterpiece Parsifal which Opera North performs with a 90-piece orchestra at the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham on Wednesday at 4PM.

The Chipping Norton Theatre presentation of The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, which features the final hours of Martin Luther King after he has made what became known as the "I've been to the mountaintop" speech, visits Nottingham Playhouse from Thursday until Saturday.

The 25th anniversary show of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance tours to the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham from Thursday until Sunday.

“The UK’s longest-running musical theatre concert tour” Beyond the Barricade, conceived and developed by Andy Reiss and David Fawcett, which features past principal performers from Les Misérables, celebrates its 21st year of touring at the Courtyard, Hereford on Saturday.

One hundred and thirty people from Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke, Rugby, Cannock Chase, Chelmsley Wood, Tamworth and Telford come together to perform Tappin’ In, Birmingham’s “biggest tap dancing event”, which takes place in Brindleyplace in the city on Saturday.

Birmingham-based Women and Theatre explores broad themes about women and girls’ lives and aspirations both on and off the cricket pitch in A Thousand Threads at Uplands Manor Primary School, Smethwick, West Midlands on Sunday.

Northampton Royal and Derngate’s resident company the Wardrobe Ensemble adapts Judith Kerr’s stories of Mog the Forgetful Cat which continues in the Royal until Sunday.

Birmingham Hippodrome’s B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival, which showcases “the very best in UK and international artists”, continues in venues including the Hippodrome and the Bullring and Grand Central shopping centre until Sunday.

The UK and European première of Claudia Rankine's first published play, The White Card, which poses the question “can society progress when whiteness remains invisible?” continues in the Studio at Birmingham REP until Saturday while on the main stage Clement Ishmael, Nicolas Kent, Dominique Le Gendre and Mustapha Matura transform J M Synge’s classic play into a musical with songs firmly rooted in the Caribbean in the world première of Playboy of the West Indies which continues until Saturday 2 July.

A new stage play based on the true story behind the escape of three men from a German prisoner-of-war camp in World War II, Tom, Dick and Harry, written by Andrew Pollard, Michael Hugo and Theresa Heskins, continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday 9 July.

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