Midlands productions

Published: 24 April 2016
Reporter: Steve Orme

Rocky Horror Show at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham
John Elkington (Freddy) and Carla Mendonça (Dotty) in Noises Off at Nottingham Playhouse Credit: Robert Day
Legally Blonde the Musical at Curve, Leicester Credit: Catherine Ashmore

Based on the playwright’s experiences as a tail gunner during World War II, Terrence Rattigan’s Flare Path flies into Birmingham REP from Monday until Saturday.

Diana Vickers plays Janet, Ben Freeman is Brad, Paul Cattermole takes the roles of Eddie and Dr Scott and Liam Tamne is Frank N Furter in Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show which does the Time Warp at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham from Monday until Saturday.

Antony Costa from the boy band Blue says Save the Last Dance for Me at Stoke's Regent Theatre from Monday until Saturday.

Fifty-three years after the Fab Four performed on the Birmingham Hippodrome stage, Beatlemania returns to the venue in Let It Be from Monday until Saturday 30 April.

An “arresting physical endurance act that crashes head first into an impossibly true love story”, Made in China’s Tonight I’m Gonna Be the New Me will be performed by Jessica Latowicki in the Studio at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Tuesday.

Oliver Mellor, Terri Dwyer and Marcus Hutton call at the Grand, Wolverhampton with Frederick Knott’s Dial M for Murder from Tuesday until Saturday.

Natasha Gray and Kevin Pallister go Round and Round the Garden in Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry from Tuesday until Saturday.

Visitors to Coventry's City Arcade can get an experience of prison life when Rideout opens its replica, two-prisoner cell for Go To Jail which will have a captive audience in the Shop Front Theatre from Tuesday until Saturday.

After four series on BBC1, Adil Ray who plays self-appointed community leader Mr Khan takes Citizen Khan—They All Know Me! to the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham on Wednesday.

Charting a course “from the secrets of World War I intelligence via the moon through to 9/11, the erosion of privacy, Edward Snowden and the terror of a future that might already be upon us”, Proto-type Theater’s A Machine they’re Secretly Building spies on the Studio at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Wednesday.

A new interactive comedy from Liz John and Julia Wright which features Caroline Nash and Oli Leonard and is set in a call centre, Calling for Help! aims to raise a laugh at Market Harborough Theatre, Leicestershire on Thursday and Artrix, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire on Friday.

Harvey Basset, Benjamin Darlington, Neville Cann, Elizabeth Brooks, Jennifer Rigby, Karen Whyte and Megan Straken are the cast of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at the Blue Orange Theatre, Birmingham from Thursday until Saturday 7 May.

Ellen Kent’s production of Puccini’s Tosca, set against the Napoleonic Wars and a corrupt Italian regime, visits Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Friday.

Gareth Gates and Michael Courtney are Mad About the Musicals in the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham on Friday and at Lichfield Garrick on Saturday.

Blanche McIntyre continues to direct Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, which she feels is “the greatest farce ever written”, at Nottingham Playhouse until Saturday while in the Neville Studio Nottingham-born playwright Daniel Hoffmann-Gill’s new play Kings, featuring two actors who are making their professional debuts, one with Downs Syndrome, the other an amputee, also continues until Saturday.

A “hilarious and not-so-holy story of hope, coming together and finding your feet when your world is turned upside down”, Folk by Tom Wells continues in the Studio at Birmingham REP until Saturday.

Dance theatre company Phizzical continues to stage Samir Bhamra’s Bring on the Bollywood, a musical combining influences from British classical literature and contemporary Bollywood style, in the B2 auditorium at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry until Saturday.

Lucy Jones plays Elle Woods in a new production of the comedy Legally Blonde the Musical at Curve, Leicester which continues until Saturday 14 May.

At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, Paapa Essiedu plays the lead role in Hamlet which continues until Saturday 13 August while in the Swan Theatre Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, which features David Threlfall in the title role and Rufus Hound as Sancho Panza, continues until Saturday 21 May, and Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan share the roles of Faustus and Mephistopheles in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus which continues until Thursday 4 August.

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