Stage: New Season
Theatre Royal Brighton’s sparkling new season is here
Once again the Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) have delivered a stunning package of balanced entertainment for audiences at Theatre Royal Brighton. Audiences are accustomed to a rich diet that offers fun shows and serious drama in equal measure, and the new season is no exception.
Starting with a series of one nighters that includes concerts, comedy and ballet, the drama season kicks off proper with The King’s Speech starring Charles Edwards as George VI and Jonathan Hyde as Lionel Logue. This stage version of the recent hit film is bound to attract huge attention and booking will no doubt be essential. (27 Feb–3 Mar)
Inspired by the smash hit albums Dreamboats And Petticoats 1, 2 and 3, comes the sell out sensation, Dreamboats And Petticoats – The Musical, featuring some of the greatest hit songs of the rock ’n’ roll era.
Written by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, the team behind Goodnight Sweetheart, Birds Of A Feather, The New Statesmen and Shine On Harvey Moon, this new feel-good musical production will give you ‘the greatest time of your life’.
Featuring classic tracks from Roy Orbison, The Shadows, Eddie Cochran, Billy Fury, and many more, including ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’, ‘Shaking All Over’, ‘Bobby’s Girl’, ‘Three Steps To Heaven’, ‘Little Town Flirt’, ‘Only Sixteen’, ‘Runaround Sue’, ‘Happy Birthday Sweet 16’, ‘Let It Be Me’, ‘Great Pretender’, ‘C’mon Everybody’, ‘Let’s Twist Again’ and many more hits from music’s golden era! (5–10 March)
Next the West End hit and international award-winning hit Legally Blonde The Musical. Winner of seven major awards including Best Musical 2011 (Olivier Awards) this all-singing, all-dancing romantic comedy is about knowing who you are and showing what you’ve got!
In Legally Blonde, Elle Woods can handle anything. So when her boyfriend, Warner, dumps her she decides to follow him to Harvard Law School and win him back. With some help from new-found friends Paulette, Emmett, and her chihuahua Bruiser, she learns that it’s so much better to be smart.
Directed by Tony and Olivier award-winning Jerry Mitchell (Hairspray), Legally Blonde The Musical is the funniest and most fabulous musical around. The best show in town, case closed. (13–24 March).
This year, Rambert Dance Company celebrates 85 years at the heart of British dance, and returns to Brighton with a breathtaking new programme. Artistic director Mark Baldwin’s playful new work, Seven For A Secret, Never To Be Told, features a gorgeous score by Ravel/McNeff, while Javier De Frutos’s exciting new work Elysian Fields is inspired by the life and work of Tennessee Williams. Plus, don’t miss this rare chance to see the romantic and surprising ‘Roses’ by American dance icon Paul Taylor, with live music throughout from the sensational Rambert Orchestra. (28–31 March)
Next Anne Boleyn – Lover. Heretic. Revolutionary. Queen. Compelling, witty and often laugh-out-loud funny, this celebration of a great English heroine, Anne Boleyn, leaps cunningly between generations to expose the life and legacy of Henry VIII’s notorious second wife.
Anne Boleyn is traditionally seen either as a pawn manipulated into the King’s bed, or as a sexually licentious predator, even a witch. But Howard Brenton puts a very different Anne – and her ghost – on the stage. Following two sell out London seasons, two powerhouses of great theatre – ETT and Shakespeare’s Globe – join forces to stage this vivid and vibrant production; gripping, rich in humour and shot through with sublime chamber music and visual imagery. (3–11 April)
In The Lady In The Van Alan Bennett has a very unusual neighbour. Parked at the bottom of his garden is a van. With a lady in it.
The Lady In The Van is Miss Shepherd. Alan knows very little about her. She used to drive ambulances in the war, might have been a nun, sells pencils and pamphlets and has an unexplained aversion to piano music. But somehow she lives in the playwright’s garden and has done for years.
Alan Bennett is one of the nation’s best-loved playwrights, with plays including The History Boys, Talking Heads and The Madness of George III. The Lady In The Van stars Nichola McAuliffe, one of British theatre’s most loved actresses. As well as playing Sheila Sabatini in seven series of ITV’s Surgical Spirit, Nichola won an Olivier Award for Outstanding Performance By An Actress In A Musical for her role in Kiss Me Kate (RSC). (11–14 April)
Theatre Royal Brighton,
Box office 08448 717 650, www.atgtickets.com/theatre-royal-brighton
