Clanger contributor, Paula Walker, has selected her top theatre tips for the coming season. To see the full programme of events at each venue, please visit their websites.
Unfolding Theatre presents:
Best in The World
Wednesday 15 October at 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (concessions £5)
Love theatre? Love darts? One person who answers yes to both is theatre director, Annie Rigby. Now Annie and her Newcastle-based company, Unfolding Theatre, are bringing their latest new show Best in the World to the University Theatre to spread darts love among us all.
Best in the World is inspired by some of darts’ biggest heroes: 16 times World Champion, Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, and 80s legends, Eric Bristow and Jocky Wilson. Performer, Alex Elliott, uses their stories as starting points for a hilarious, heart-warming and occasionally heroic journey to find out what it really means to be best in the world.
Annie told us, “It’s a fantastic feelgood show with audiences getting the chance to step up on stage and throw a few darts, eat emergency bananas (vital for all athletes!) and share their own personal triumphs. Who knows, the people of Bedford might just be the best audience in the world.”
To book tickets: call 01234 793197 or go online via Bedford Central Box Office
Sharnbrook Mill Theatre Trust present:
Miss Saigon School Edition
Friday 14th to Saturday 22nd November at 7.30pm.
Saturday 15th and 22nd November Matinee at 2.30pm
No performance on Monday 17th.
Tickets: £10
Featuring a cast of performers under the age of 19, the show by Alan Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg (the creators of ‘Les Misérables), is one of the most stunning theatrical spectacles of all time. Based on Puccini’s immortal grand opera, ‘Madame Butterfly,’ ‘Miss Saigon’ tells the story of an American soldier and a Vietnamese girl who fall in love amidst the turmoil of the Vietnam war. Separated when Saigon falls to the enemy, they spend the following years struggling to find each other again only for their endeavours to end in tragedy for her, but some hope for the child that he knows nothing about.
A great story told with great music, ‘Miss Saigon’ offers a moving testament to the human spirit and a scathing indictment of the evils of war.
Director Paul Wildman says, “I couldn’t ask for a more committed and talented cast and crew to make this stunning show a possibility. The acting, singing and movement is of such a high standard that you don’t need to go to the West End!”
Tickets are available from: The Central Box Office 01234 718112
www.sharnbrookmilltheatre.co.uk, or in person from Sharnbrook Post Office, Sharnbrook.
Square Peg presents:
The Man Who Woke up Dead
Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 October at 7.30pm Tickets: £10 (concessions £8.50)
A taut thriller, influenced by 1950s film noir and the dystopian worlds of George Orwell. The Man Who Woke Up Dead is a dark, claustrophobic nightmare, exploring the divide between fact and fiction. When everything you believe is shown to be false, holding on to any kind of truth becomes a deadly game.
When a mysterious man is rescued by an unsuspecting nurse, their worlds are thrown into paralysing doubt. As their stories unravel, we uncover a web of deceit, betrayal and manipulation where nothing is quite what it seems.
Using their unique physical and cinematic style, Square Peg Theatre creates an elegant, bold and beautifully choreographed world from the empty stage.
Tickets are available from www.theplacebedford.org.uk or from Central Box Office 01234 718112
Dumbshow present:
The Pearl (from the novel by John Steinbeck)
Tuesday 28 October at 7.30pm Tickets: £10 (concessions £8.50)
When impoverished pearl-diver Kino finds the pearl of the world, he believes his family’s life will be transformed forever. Seduced by the pearl’s beauty and promise of riches, he is blind to the danger of having something that everyone else wants.
Instead of bringing hope, the pearl leads Kino and his family down a dark and dangerous path.
A timeless fable about the allure of wealth, the confines of class, and the redemptive power of love. The Pearl asks us to consider what we value most in the world.
Tickets are available from www.theplacebedford.org.uk or from Central Box Office 01234 718112
Tangram Theatre present:
Albert Einstein: Relativitively Speaking
Thursday 6 November at 7.30pm Tickets: £10 (concessions £8)
Join Albert, the genius behind the übercoolest moustache in science, for a lecture like none you’ve ever attended. The eccentric theoretical physicist is accompanied by his two wives and mum on the piano, and by guest rapper MC Squared, as he quantum leaps us through two world wars, two theories of relativity, and the deployment of two very big bombs. Plus the worst sausage joke ever heard.
Tickets available from www.bedfordtheatre.co.uk or from Central Box Office 01234 718112
