Ayub Khan Din | Birmingham Rep | Directed by Iqbal Khan

25th anniversary production of East is East at the Birmingham Rep is a triumph: uncomfortably funny, depressingly timely and beautifully performed.

Vanessa Oakes | Shop Front Theatre | Directed by Mark Evans

OCD is centre stage in a new play which delivers an emotionally powerful and moving insight into living with this most debilitating condition. It is the perfect post-pandemic piece to reopen this intimate gem of a space in a Coventry shopping centre.

Alan Ayckbourn | Sutton Arts Theatre | Directed by Barrie Atchison

First performed in 1972, this black comedy from the prolific Alan Ayckbourn (84 full length plays and counting) time travels across three years to chart the changing lives and fortunes of three married couples over three successive Christmas Eve parties. The playwright’s own insistence that this early 1970s period piece should include a note in the programme stating the era of the play to put it into context is telling: it is certainly of its time and although dated in many respects, still delivers laughs and was much enjoyed by the opening night audience.

Emilie Cullum-Kenyon | Park Hall Academy Theatre | Directed by Emily Cullum-Kenyon

School productions are a hit-and-miss affair. They can be tedious at best and plain awful at worst as much-loved but talentless children forget their lines and struggle to remember where they should be standing on stage. Thankfully there is no shortage of talent in the latest theatrical offering from Park Hall Academy. ‘Roald Dahl’s School of Adventure’, a new musical written and directed by Head of Performing Arts Emilie Cullum-Kenyon, is a gloriumptious hit.

L Frank Baum | Sutton Arts Theatre | Directed by Emily Armstrong and Dexter Whitehead

Sutton Coldfield may be a long way from Kansas but this year’s heart-warming and brilliantly performed Christmas production of The Wizard of Oz at Sutton Arts Theatre proves there really is no place like home.

Paul Hutton | Blue Orange Theatre, Birmingham | Directed by James Williams

As the title of this filthily raucous adult panto suggests, this is Cinderella as you’ve never seen her before. Out with pumpkins and glass slippers; in with dildos and dating apps. Not so much ‘will she go to the ball?’ as ‘will she swipe left, or right?’

William Shakespeare | Shakespeare House, Derby | Directed by Matt Swan

The plot of Richard II is, at one level, very simple: it’s a play in which one king is deposed and another takes his place. Succession was an Elizabethan obsession and many of Shakespeare’s plays, historical and tragic, examine political, moral, social and psychological aspects of the transition of monarchical power. After James I was crowned in 1603, interest in plays on this theme disappeared almost immediately.

Clare Snape | Quarndon Village Hall | Directed by Clare Snape

‘Inside Out’, which premiered at Quarndon Village Hall from 28^th to 30^th November, is a series of three linked plays exploring personal stories related to imprisonment. Billed as ‘tales of life, death, love, redemption and forgiveness’, they present an emotionally charged and thoughtful insight into some of the complexities which lie behind every individual’s journey to prison.

John Kander and Fred Ebb | Ashby School Theatre | Directed by Ali Jackson

Students at Ashby School deliver a knockout performance of Chicago, rising impressively to the challenge of staging this much-loved musical about celebrity and women getting away with murder. A strong central cast, ably supported by a large and talented ensemble, bring great energy to the stage in this criminally good production of the high school edition of the show, directed by Ali Jackson.

Tennessee Williams | Crescent Theatre | Directed by James David Knapp

The Crescent Theatre’s latest studio production – ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ – powerfully explores the battle between fantasy and reality which sits at the heart of this landmark American play. Director James David Knapp notes that the play presents audiences with a melting pot of questions and an ‘exploration of life at its most painful and raw.’ He has assembled an impressive cast who successfully transport us to Elysian Fields, the run-down French Quarter district in New Orleans in which the play is set.