What's on in the Midlands

Published: 24 September 2022
Reporter: Steve Orme

South Pacific at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham Credit: Johan Persson
Shareesa Valentine in Forgotten Voices at the Crescent Theatre, Birmingham
Adrian Scarboroough and Sophie Thompson in The Clothes They Stood Up In at Nottingham Playhouse

Chronic Insanity stages What Really Happened To Vine?, a new digital-theatre piece that investigates the demise of popular social media platform Vine, at The Void, Upper Parliament Street, Nottingham on Monday and Nicki Morley’s Medusa Reloaded, “a new piece of gig theatre based on Medusa and the Gorgons”, on Friday.

The world’s longest-running play, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, starts its 70th anniversary tour at the venue where it held its première in 1952, the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, with a cast featuring John Altman, Todd Carty and Gwyneth Strong, from Tuesday until Saturday.

Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific should have some enchanted evenings at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham from Tuesday until Saturday.

From Tudor queens to pop princesses, the six wives of Henry VIII tell their tales, “remixing 500 years of historical heartbreak into an 80-minute celebration of 21st century girl power” in SIX at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry from Tuesday until Sunday.

Rambert dances into Birmingham Hippodrome with Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby which has its world première from Tuesday until Sunday.

Transforming the interior of a 24ft shipping container into a Victorian séance room, Darkfield’s Séance may unsettle audiences at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham from Tuesday until Sunday 9 October.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Ballet Black performs two new works, Say It Loud, choreographed and directed by Ballet Black’s founder and artistic director Cassa Pancho which charts “the struggles and inspiration behind the formation of this exciting and pioneering company”, and Black Sun by South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma, at Birmingham Rep on Wednesday.

Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “classic Victorian chiller”, The Tell-Tale Heart is a Rumpus Theatre Company presentation at New Theatre Royal, Lincoln on Wednesday and Thursday and the Winding Wheel, Chesterfield on Friday.

A “spectacular line-up of the best improv troupes from the UK and internationally” can be seen during Birmingham Improv Festival at Midlands Arts Centre in the city from Wednesday until Sunday.

Frantic Assembly takes Shakespeare’s text and presents an Othello “firmly rooted in a volatile 21st century production” which continues in the Studio at Leicester’s Curve until Thursday.

A “tragi-comic, fast-paced, coming-of-age tale on the perils of growing up in an unforgivingly lonely world”, Fishcat by Elan Butler visits the Neville Studio at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday.

New Perspectives presents The Great Almighty Gill, written and performed by Daniel Hoffmann-Gill, a “tour-de-force autobiographical performance, part tribute, part stand-up and occasional lip-syncing”, at Upstairs at the Western, Leicester on Friday.

Neil Bartlett’s adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, which introduces “three new space-taking female characters” who “drag the violence and secrecy of Hyde out from the shadows of the Victorian gentlemen's club into the light” runs at Derby Theatre from Friday until Saturday 22 October.

The Royal Shakespeare Company brings back its Mischief Festival in The Other Place, Stratford, featuring Nina Segal’s O, Island!, a “funny and furious modern myth about disaster and community, exploring how borders can be changed by people, by nature and by accident”, from Friday until Saturday 5 November while in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Blanche McIntyre’s contemporary take on Shakespeare’s dark comedy All’s Well That Ends Well and Richard III featuring disabled actor Arthur Hughes in the lead role both continue until Saturday 8 October.

The Torch Theatre Company stages Henry Naylor’s one-woman play Angel, a woman’s “brave fight against the biggest threat to her town and its people”, at the Courtyard, Hereford on Saturday.

The true story of Eva Moorhead Kadalie, the widow of South Africa’s first national black trade union leader Clements Kadalie who paved the way for the country’s liberation, is told in the one-woman show Forgotten Voices, written by her grandson David Moorhead and performed by Shareesa Valentine at the Crescent Theatre, Birmingham on Saturday.

Adrian Scarborough adapts Alan Bennett’s novella The Clothes They Stood Up In and appears alongside Sophie Thompson in the play which continues until Saturday.

Marvellous, a play about Staffordshire “living legend” Neil “Nello” Baldwin, which was written by Baldwin and Malcolm Clarke and adapted for the stage by Baldwin and New Vic artistic director Theresa Heskins, continues at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme until Saturday 8 October.

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