What's on in the North East

Published: 3 November 2019
Reporter: Peter Lathan

Ten Times Table (Theatre Royal, Newcastle)
McGonagall's Chronicles (Live Theatre)
9 to 5 The Musical (Sunderland Empire)
When Did You Stop Dancing? (Hexham Library)
And She (ARC Stockton)

From Monday to Saturday at Newcastle Theatre Royal, The Classic Comedy Theatre Company presents Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table, starring Robert Daws, Deborah Grant, Robert Duncan and Mark Curry.

In Stage 2 at Northern Stage on Tuesday (11:00, 12:30, 2:00 and 6:00), Bamboozle presents Pulse, a production for young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. There will be two versions: an intimate version for audiences of six young people described as having PMLD and their family groups and a relaxed version open to all families. Contact the theatre for guidance and for ticket availability. In Stage 3 on Wednesday at 8:00, Rhianne Bowes presents Mama Rhi's Lady Garden in which there’ll be "everything you’ll expect from a saucy cabaret": a sexy MC (Mama Rhi), plenty of weird and wonderful acts (Mama Rhi in various costumes) and the world-famous house band (Mama Rhi and her iPod). On Thursday in Stage 2, there’s Frankenstein, a world of feverish dreaming as storyteller Ben Haggarty and musician Sianed Jones embark on an intense 'monster's-lib' interpretation of Mary Shelley's modern myth. (This show is sold out.)

On Wednesday and Thursday at Live Theatre, Gary McNair performs McGonagall's Chronicles, a biography in ‘almost rhyming verse’ of the late Dundonian poet Sir William Topaz McGonagall, man who has come to be known as the 'World’s Worst Poet'. The production is directed by Live’s Artistic Director Joe Douglas.

Unfolding Theatre’s Best in the World continues at Alphabetti until Saturday. After the show on Tuesday and Wednesday (at 9:30), Wambui Hardcastle performs her response to the show.

At the Tyne Theatre and Opera House on Saturday at 8:00, Sh*t-faced Shakespeare present A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a combination of an entirely serious adaptation of a Shakespearean classic, with an entirely sh*t-faced cast member.

On Thursday, Newcastle company State of Grace brings Doves, a new dance-theatre work that charts the rite of passage of two very different young women, to Dance City.

From Tuesday to Saturday, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 The Musical comes to Sunderland Empire.

At Arts Centre Washington on Thursday, The Pantaloons presents their jazz age version of Othello.

When Did You Stop Dancing?—a show about friendship and loneliness that asks why history is always told by the boys by telling the true story of the dancing plague of 1518—is at Hexham Library on Wednesday. Tickets from Queen’s Hall Arts box office.

Timeworks Theatre presents The Unfortunates—In the Shadow of Jack the Ripper, an imagined meeting in death of the five victims of the most infamous of all serial killers at The Exchange, North Shields, on Saturday at 8:00.

Blackeyed Theatre in association with South Hill Park Arts Centre presents Jane Eyre at the Gala Theatre, Durham on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Bonnie and the Bonnettes brings And She to ARC Stockton on Thursday at 7:00.

The Unfortunates—In the Shadow of Jack the Ripper comes to Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre on Sunday 10 November.

From Wednesday to Saturday (various times), David Walliams’s Billionaire Boy comes to Darlington Hippodrome.

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