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.