Kicking off the Christmas theatre season in style, Burton’s Little Theatre Company sparkle and shine in a winning production of ‘Nativity! The Musical’, directed by John Bowness.

Genius meets jealousy in Peter Shaffer’s searing revenge tale, handsomely staged at the Oldbury Rep.

Slice of life comedy is full of heart.

The dawn of ‘Dracbeth’ in Derby: Shakespeare’s tragedy gets the gothic treatment.

Bennett’s wise and compassionate writing shines through in this 20^th anniversary production of ‘The History Boys’, playing at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre as part of its national tour.

Lichfield Musical Youth Theatre combine slickness and sass in an opening night production of Chicago which thoroughly deserved its standing ovation.

Multi-talented writer-performer Rob Madge brings their award-winning autobiographical production to Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre.

Oldbury Rep stage moving adaptation of Michelle Magorian’s wartime story.

Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s musical version of the film and play about a Women’s Institute group baring all for a charity fundraising calendar is a warm-hearted hit in Lichfield Operatic Society’s latest cheeky offering.

The Bard hits Burton in a slick production of ‘Shakespeare in Love’.

Lichfield forest glade transforms into ancient Greece in absurdist take on Shakespeare’s early farcical comedy.

Complex and compelling: Nina Raine’s groundbreaking 2017 play is staged with style and substance at Birmingham’s Crescent Theatre.

Sutton Coldfield’s Town Hall is transformed into the fairytale kingdom of Duloc in Trinity Players’ latest production: a high-energy staging of ‘Shrek the Musical’.

Harvey Fierstein’s feel-good musical comedy returns to the Lichfield Garrick in glitzy high-heeled style.

Musical fable about the ultimate stage mother hits Birmingham in an ambitious production at the Crescent Theatre.

Cole Porter’s musical comedy is a de-lovely delight in Manor Musical Theatre Company’s latest production at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall.

You wait for a performance of Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s clever comedy ‘A Bunch of Amateurs’ to be staged locally and then two productions come along at once. Having very recently reviewed this play at the Highbury Theatre in Sutton Coldfield, I was keen to see what a Lichfield ‘bunch of amateurs’ made of it in their hometown Garrick Theatre.

Rising to the comic challenge under the direction of Robin Lewitt, the Lichfield Players’ production delivers laugh after laugh thanks to a talented cast of amateur actors playing amateur actors very professionally!

Highbury Players’ latest production is a witty and warm-hearted homage to amateur theatre.

Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s ‘A Bunch of Amateurs’ will be most familiar to audiences from the 2008 film starring Burt Reynolds but this is how it should be seen: in a local theatre with a cast of amateur actors playing the amateur actors. It works on so many levels and in this production, directed by Laura McLaurie, makes for an evening full of laughs and clever comedy.

It seems we can’t get enough of Agatha Christie. The ‘Queen of Crime’ continues to excite the public imagination with her stories of murder nearly 50 years after her own death. ‘The Mousetrap’ has been running in the West End since 1952; ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ looks set to run and run at London County Hall; ‘And Then There Were None’ has just finished a UK tour and ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ starts one later this year. Christie is clearly good box office and, in the latest production from Birmingham’s Crescent Theatre, it’s easy to see why.

Billed as ‘for anyone interested in Virginia Woolf, beautiful literature or simply love’, ‘Vita and Virginia’ is a beautifully crafted and performed two-hander which takes us into the heart of the famous ‘Orlando’ author and her 20-year relationship with fellow writer Vita Sackville-West.