It’s all quiet on the reviews front at the moment but I’m already getting excited about what’s coming up in the new season – and there are some big shows coming to the region.
As September begins, Birmingham’s Blue Orange Theatre is offering a new take on the cult classic Plan 9 From Outer Space – an evening that promises to be a lot of fun. Over at Coventry’s Belgrade, Roll Over Beethoven gets the season off to a rocking start.
Wolverhampton’s beautiful Grand Theatre reopens after an extensive summer refurb – I look forward to sinking a few drinks in the new bar and checking out the new performance space, before settling into the all-new seating in the auditorium for a wide and varied programme.
The REP, in Birmingham’s Centenary Square, kicks off with a brand new production of Oscar Wilde’s comic masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, with the iconic role of Lady Bracknell taken on by Cathy Tyson, of Mona Lisa fame… A pity we can’t reunite her with Bob Hoskins as the Reverend Chasuble!
Birmingham’s Hippodrome continues to bring the biggest West End shows to the West Midlands, with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang flying in for a visit, while over at the New Alexandra Theatre, the musicals keep coming with The Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon and Beverley Knight starring in Sister Act. If that’s not enough, a new production of Little Shop of Horrors will be cropping up to delight and horrify. Meanwhile in Stratford upon Avon, the RSC is staging Aphra Behn’s The Rover in the Swan and, in the main house, Anthony Sher will be giving his King Lear.
October will see Alan Ayckbourn direct a revival of one of my favourites of his plays, the sci-fi comedy, Henceforward, up at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and I’m also looking forward to going down to London for Dominic Cooper’s return to the stage in The Libertine.
Normal service on Bum On A Seat is resumed on Wednesday 29th August, when I’ll be reviewing The Two Noble Kinsmen at the RSC’s Swan Theatre. It’s the only Shakespeare play I’ve never seen performed on stage or on screen. My pen is poised to tick it off my bucket list.
Up next: Jamie Wilkes and James Corrigan as Arcite and Palamon in The Two Noble Kinsmen. Photograph: Donald Cooper
Bum on a Seat 
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