Best of theatre: 2014

Sophie Davies looks ahead at the best of theatre and performance this season, around the university area and in London.

Warwick Arts Centre has two performances of the award-winning cult trio Tiger Lillies’ latest macabre musical melodrama Lulu – A Murder Ballad on 7 and 8 February, produced by Opera North. This will be followed by The Ayckbourn Ensemble, an exciting event in which a trilogy of Alan Ayckbourn’s works will be performed and preluded by an audience with the prolific playwright himself (11-15 Feb). The month will then round off with Music Theatre Warwick’s production of the dark musical thriller Sweeney Todd (19-22 Feb) and Filter theatre company’s anarchic, rock-and-roll take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (25 Feb – 1 March). Highlights in the subsequent months seem to be the return of the always innovative and dynamic Frantic Assembly with The Believers (11-15 March), described as an exploration of love and loss, and The Union’s all-male, WWII-set production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore (22-26 April).

In Coventry, the Belgrade Theatre’s diverse Spring 2014 line-up will include a visit from the critically acclaimed musical Blood Brothers (27 Jan – 8 Feb), The Reduced Height Theatre Company’s version of popular farce See How They Run (3-8 March) led by Warwick Davis, and a production of Pygmalion (12-17 May) starring Alistair McGowan, which will mark one hundred years since the play was first performed. The Belgrade will also present a Spanish Golden Age Season throughout March and April, in which three completely new translations of Spanish plays will be brought to the stage by celebrated directors Laurence Boswell and Mehmet Ergen.

Look out for one-night-only performances of three shows Royal Spa Centre in Leamington which received excellent reviews at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival: the hit homage to Morecambe and Wise Eric and Little Ern (8 Mar), the witty tribute to Julie Andrews by Fascinating Aida’s Sarah-Louise Young Julie Madly Deeply (17 Apr), and spoof comedy The Only Way Is Downton (26 Apr), starring impressionist Luke Kempner. Meanwhile, at Leamington’s Loft Theatre, the first play of the season will be Hitchcock Blonde (22 Jan – 1 Feb), a story of lust and obsession in both the 1950s and the present day. 

At the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, Wendy and Peter Pan continues until 2 March, offering a twist on the classic children’s tale from predominantly Wendy’s perspective. Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, dramatisations of Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize winning novels about Tudor England, are at the RSC until 29 March. The award-winning Antony Sher then stars in Henry IV Part I and Part II (18 March – 9 Sept).

Just a little further afield, Birmingham will be visited by a wide variety of touring musicals such as Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (3-8 Feb) and West Side Story (1-19 Apr) at the New Alexandra Theatre, as well as Singin’ in the Rain (18 Mar – 5 Apr) and Evita (8-19 Apr) at The Hippodrome. And if you’re a musical theatre fan in search of something new, it will be possible to see Happy Days (22-26 Apr), which recently featured heavily in Channel 4’s The Sound of Musicals, at The Hippodrome in April.

The Birmingham REP‘s programme includes a visit from the touring production of Birdsong (17-22 Mar) marking 100 years since the start of the First World War, along with two works of Brecht: A Life of Galileo (28 Feb – 8 Mar) which received critical acclaim at the RSC last year and a completely new staging of The Threepenny Opera (27 Mar – 12 Apr).

In London, as usual, there will be no shortage of Shakespeare with the chance to see, among others, King Lear (14 Jan – 25 Mar) starring Simon Russell Beale at the National Theatre, Othello (2-26 Apr) starring James Alexandrou at the Leicester Square Theatre and a revisit to Lucy Bailey’s celebrated production of Titus Andronicus at the Globe Theatre from the 24 April. Following sell-out runs in 2013, award-winning modern classic The Weir (16 Jan – 19 Apr) will be at the Wyndham’s Theatre and Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, a play about the South African apartheid, will be at the Young Vic Theatre from 6 February to 8 March. Elsewhere, there is a revival of Ghost Stories (13 Feb – 24 May) at the Arts Theatre which is bound to please horror fans, a new production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (1 Mar – 7 June) starring Angela Lansbury at the Gielgud Theatre, and a stage adaptation of Fatal Attraction (8 Mar – 21 June) directed by Trevor Nunn at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

New West End musicals will include Harry Hill’s I Can’t Sing! The X Factor Musical (from 27 Feb at the Palladium), based on the ITV talent show, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (opens 10 March) at the Savoy Theatre starring Robert Lindsay and Rufus Hound, in addition to a much-anticipated revival of Miss Saigon opening in May.

The 2014 Olivier Awards ceremony promises to be an interesting event in the world of musical theatre, as The Book of Mormon and Once, which pretty much swept the board at the 2011 and 2012 Tony Awards respectively, will presumably be running against each other, along with likely competition from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Stephen Ward.

Do double check dates, all correct at time of publication.