Birmingham REP announces Autumn and Winter 2019 season

In her last programmed season for Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Roxana said: “I was originally drawn to The REP by its pioneering spirit, the diversity and energy of the city and the potential of a theatre that could produce the whole gamut of work: from the epic and commercial to the niche and community, encompassed in Graham Winteringham’s inspiring building.

"The REP is blessed with an audience that is both open hearted and open minded and I hope that some of the spirit of the city and its people is reflected in a programme that is bursting with national and home-grown talent, alongside inventive new work across its three stages and beyond.”

The Autumn season opens with the return of The Lovely Bones from September 6 to 21 based on the hit novel by Alice Sebold, followed by Inua Ellams' acclaimed Barber Shop Chronicles from September 26 to 28.

My Family and Citizen Smith star Robert Lindsay appear in Prism from October 4 to 12, Terry Johnson’s play based on the life of double Oscar-winning cinematic master Jack Cardiff; the man who made Hollywood’s greatest divas beautiful and who lived a life as colourful as his cinematography.

Prism is a co-production between The REP and Hampstead Theatre following the play’s sell-out run in London in 2017. It opens at The REP ahead of a UK tour.

Jane Austen adaptation Blood of the Young’s Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) arrives at the theatre from October 15 to November 2. In a new scaled-up production, this unique take on Jane Austen’s unrivalled classic is an irreverent all-female adaptation featuring a subversive love letter to the 19th century original.

Hanif Kureishi’s iconic and ground-breaking 1985 film, My Beautiful Laundrette (5 – 9 November) comes to the stage from November 5 to 9, followed by Stephen Daldry's An Inspector Calls from November 12 to 16.

For Christmas 2019, the theatre will host a new staging of Peter Pan (from November 30 to January 19. The show sees the return of director Liam Steel following his highly-acclaimed production of The Wizard of Oz last year.

Other shows in the new season include Rebel Music, Prime Time, Mushy: Lyrically Speaking, One Under, Lyngo Theatre's What A Wonderful World and more.

The biennial BEDLAM Festival returns to get people thinking and talking about mental health through the arts. The festival is produced by The REP in partnership with Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Midlands Arts Centre, Sampad South Asian Arts and Geese Theatre to promote positive mental health and wellbeing with a programme spanning theatre, dance and visual arts. Highlights include two new plays which explore the rising epidemic of male suicide - The Thing by Les Enfants Terribles and Revolving Door by Polly Wright and the Hearth Centre, plus a third new play Playing The Game about mothers in prison created by Geese Theatre Company using interviews conducted at a UK prison.

The REP will also collaborate with Birmingham’s Fierce Festival in the autumn to present three surprising and provocative performances: In Many Hands by Katie McIntosh – a performance that brings the audience into a tactile, multi-sensory situation; Familiar - a twinset of performances on significant otherness, one each written by Gillie Kleiman and Greg Wohead and performed by the other, and Working With Children by Nicola Gunn - a performance essay that looks at the problem of intimacy and exposure.

The venue will also host Split Britches’ Unexploded Ordnances (UXO on November 16 as part of SHOUT Festival.. SHOUT festival will also present a showcase of work-in-progress performances from the next generation of queer Midlands theatre-makers in Queer And Now on November 9.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/