Following their triumphant productions of The Changeling (2006) and The Duchess of Malfi (1995), Donnellan and Ormerod return to Jacobean tragedy with a new production of John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.

In this violent and bloody drama, we watch a brother and sister’s passionate descent into hell. Incest, morality, religion and corruption all make this play as shocking and controversial today as it was almost four hundred years ago.

Cheek by Jowl have established an international reputation for bringing ‘fresh life to the classics using intense, vivid performances like a laser of light to set the text ablaze’ (The Guardian). The company has toured to over 300 cities in 40 countries and is an Associate Company at the Barbican, London.

“The performances are expressive and assured…Lydia Wilson is outstanding as Annabella” **** Sydney Morning Herald

“An excellent, robust production of a powerful play, and an experience not to be missed for those seeking a riveting night of theatrical excellence.” The Australian Stage

Age: 16+

Performed in English.

Be our guest and experience the magic of this spectacular stage adaptation of the classic film. Join the eccentric cast of characters from the childhood favourite, brought to life by Music Theatre Warwick. Based on the much-loved animated feature, dancing spoons, singing teapots and an ancient enchantment make this ‘tale as old as time’ family theatre at its best.

Suitable for those aged 6+

Enjoy 10% discount off ice creams and sorbets when you pre-order when purchasing your ticket from Box Office or online. Add an ice cream to your basket now or mention to our Box Office when you call to book your ticket. Find out more here

The best of British Theatre broadcast live via satellite to screens at Warwick Arts Centre.

In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father’s cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber-merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their village, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl – now a famed American film director – looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.

Following Vincent in Brixton and The Reporter, Nicholas Wright’s new play is a funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood’s golden age. The award-winning Antony Sher – whose previous work at the National includes Primo and Stanley – returns to play Jacob.

“A love-letter to the movies and an appealingly intelligent evocation of Jewish folk culture” **** Michael Billington, The Guardian

Enjoy 10% discount off ice creams and sorbets when you pre-order when purchasing your ticket from Box Office or online. Add an ice cream to your basket now or mention to our Box Office when you call to book your ticket. Find out more here

Join Simon Callow as he reads excerpts from his exciting new book, Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World. Simon says: “When you find a writer that you love it’s like finding a best friend. Dickens never ceases to delight me. There’s something in him which chimes with me: the energy; the scope; the generosity; the endless inventiveness of it. There is in Dickens the spirit of the medieval carnival that just deeply turns me on. That sense of the world as one big body and a celebration and embrace of all its grotesqueness, the ugliness, the smell, the sweat.”

This promises to be an extraordinary evening, celebrating a great novelist.

The tale of a lad who wins a box of records from John Peel’s Shed in a competition on the John Peel show and how it affects his life.

An ode to radio, a box of Peel’s records and anyone who’s ever sought solace in wireless. Adapted from acclaimed book Radio Head.

“I could have listened for hours” ***** The Independent

“Beautifully-written, funny and poignant… Just as John Peel’s records changed his life this lovely, simple, beautifully executed show has enriched ours” ***** The Scotsman

“One of the Top Ten Theatre Highlights of the Edinburgh Festival… Funny, perceptive and charming” **** The Telegraph

“One of the loveliest things you’ll see all year” **** The Herald

Running Time: 1 hour (no interval)

I have this little sister Lola She is small and very funny…

Don’t miss everyone’s favourite brother and sister, Charlie and Lola, in their extremely everso wonderful stage show! The stars of the hit BBC TV series and books by Lauren Child are brought to life by a magical mix of puppets, live action and music.

Will Charlie ever get Lola to sleep, even though she is not sleepy and will not go to bed? It won’t be easy – the Tigers want their bedtime milk, the Dancing Dogs have borrowed Lola’s pyjamas and Lola thinks there is an ogre hiding in the wardrobe!

“If you’ve got kids, go and see Charlie and Lola’s Best Bestest Play. If you haven’t, borrow some and go anyway… it’s a genuine delight” Sunday Express

Enjoy 10% discount off ice creams and sorbets when you pre-order when purchasing your ticket from Box Office or online. Add an ice cream to your basket now or mention to our Box Office when you call to book your ticket. Find out more here

Charlie and Lola™ and © Lauren Child 2005. Charlie and Lola is produced by Tiger Aspect Productions and distributed by BBC Worldwide Ltd. BBC Worldwide logo ™ & © BBC 1996.

Following a sell-out, award-winning run in Edinburgh, puppet innovators Blind Summit Theatre present a brand new adult puppetry show, The Table.

This visually stunning journey takes in a ballet of disembodied heads, a story told entirely by pictures emerging from a briefcase and a tiny Moses with a cardboard head full of lonely wisdom. Told with beautiful puppets and Blind Summit’s trademark performing style, this story combines dark humour and flat-pack technology. No man is an island… but sometimes a puppet can be a table.

Praise for The Table:

“Eye-poppingly skilful – and bizarrely good fun” **** Time Out

“Astonishingly accomplished puppetry.” **** The Daily Telegraph

“Blind Summit prove once again that when you’re working in miniature you don’t have to think small.” **** The Guardian

Running Time: 1hr 5mins (no interval)

When white secondary school teacher Amanda is pushed to the ground by a black student Jason, she’s reluctant to report him as she knows exclusion could condemn him to a future as troubled as his past.

But when Jason decides to protect himself by spinning a story of his own, Amanda is sucked into a vortex of lies in which victim becomes perpetrator. With the truth becoming less clear and more dangerous by the day, it isn’t long before careers, relationships and even lives are under threat.

Written by Vivienne Franzmann and directed by Matthew Dunster. Winner of the George Devine Award, Bruntwood Playwriting Competition and nominated for Best New Play at the Theatre Awards UK 2011.

T. Post Show Talk Wed 22 Feb

Age: 14+

“The play of the year? Quite possibly.” ***** The Daily Telegraph

“A startling debut… the young cast are remarkable.” The Times

A winner of the 2008 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.

Prepare to be surprised and delighted, moved and enlightened as Bobby Baker demonstrates how she achieves that ultimate ‘wellbeing’ factor. From working-out to chilling out, via the kitchen sink, Bobby’s wellness roadshow investigates how to get better at feeling better – cup of tea included.

Bobby has developed this brand new show out of her own experience of illness and hard-won recovery. Designed in collaboration with sculptor Charlie Whittuck, an extraordinary set of fantastical ‘recovery’ apparatus promises surprises galore as well as state-of-the-art technical equipment, all developed with well-being in mind.

Follow Bobby’s expert example and join her on the road to wellness – and beyond.

“A priceless gift wrapped in a theatrical box of tricks.” Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

“Exceptionally funny, Bobby Baker is a performance artist of rare quality and distinction.” The Daily Telegraph

T. Post Show Talk Thu 23 Feb

Running Time: 1hr 20 mins (no interval)

Mad Gyms & Kitchens has been commissioned for Unlimited, a project celebrating disability, arts, culture and sport on an unprecedented scale as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The project is principally funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor and is delivered in partnership between London 2012, Arts Council England, the Scottish Arts Council, Arts Council of Wales, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the British Council.

“All that succession and repetition of massed humanity. All those vile bodies. And now a party in a mental hospital…”

1939 begins with a fabulous New Year’s Party in London frequented by the fashionable aristocratic set known as ‘The Bright Young Things’, all beautiful and rich and senseless. Amongst them are Adam Fenwick-Symes and Nina Blount, the fiancées fated to never quite tie the knot, Agatha Runcible the vapid but loveable heiress, the flamboyant and ever charming Miles Malpractice, Archie Schwert the copycat, and Simon Balcairn who is also the gossip columnist tearing his friends to shreds.

Nobody can be trusted, nothing is certain, love has a price and money is worthless. Everything is about to collide in a rush of fire and deception and a man with a very odd moustache.

Vile Bodies is the student-written adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel, a tale as true now as it was then about the role of celebrity, money and love.

With a large cast of student actors and an all student team, Warwick Arts Centre is home to the greatest party of the year.

The best of British Theatre broadcast live via satellite to screens at Warwick Arts Centre.

I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? Mad or well advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!

Two sets of twins separated at birth collide in the same city without meeting for one crazy day, as multiple mistaken identities lead to confusion on a grand scale. And for no one more so than Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio who, in search of their brothers, arrive in a land entirely foreign to their distant home.

Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?
Am I your man? Am I myself?

Shakespeare’s furiously paced comedy is staged in a contemporary world into which walk three prohibited foreigners who see everything for the first time. Lenny Henry plays Antipholus of Syracuse.

Running time: 3 hrs 15 mins (including interval)

ENCORE SCREENING RECENTLY ADDED. Due to popular demand, we have added an encore screening of The Comedy of Errors on Sun 11 Mar click here for further details and to book.

Enjoy 10% discount off ice creams and sorbets when you pre-order when purchasing your ticket from Box Office or online. Add an ice cream to your basket now or mention to our Box Office when you call to book your ticket. Find out more here

Bryony Kimmings is NOT an alcoholic. But she has always had a rocky relationship with booze. It seems the dark stuff is intrinsically linked to her confidence as an artist, as well as to blame for her most genius and most hideous creations.

From Jackson Pollock to Amy Winehouse, from Oscar Wilde to Charlie Sheen, everyone’s on something but why? From the Total Theatre award-winning creator of Sex Idiot comes a hilarious and moving new one-woman show investigating the historical links between artists and mind enhancing drugs.

2 parts song and dance routine, 1 part breakdown, with a twist of sobering reality for good measure, the show follows Bryony as she cracks open her own creative psyche with the help of a film-maker, a team of scientists, carers and an American IT expert. Created solely from material made during a seven-day experiment, in which Bryony was kept in various states of scientific drunkenness. Performed sober.

“A bold, brassy yet sobering show with lots of bottle.” The Guardian

“Warm, funny and visually stunning.” Time Out

“An unabashedly wacky sweetheart with a delightful anything goes air.” The Times

A Soho Theatre and Junction co-commission. Supported by Escalator East to Edinburgh and Arts Council England. 7 Day Drunk experiment supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation. Subsidised rehearsal space provided by Jerwood.

Running Time: 1hr (no interval)

Age: 16+

Written by the multi award-winning Welsh playwright Tim Price this highly acclaimed drama was inspired by a week spent in a Welsh borders market town and the young people he met there.
Life, love and loss in a picture postcard town is laid bare in this heartbreaking but darkly comic new play. Through a series of intertwining accounts For Once cuts to the heart of a family, and a community, turned upside down by tragedy.

Time Out, Critics’ Choice ****

Evening Standard, Critics’ Choice ****

Financial Times ****

T. Post Show Talk Fri 9 Mar

For Once is part of Bite Size Festival and the Sat evening performance will also be included in the Bite Size day ticket. Day passes provide access to all Bite Size performances, and are availbable for purchase for £30 (£28) in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

Kindle Theatre – Hotel du Van

Hotel Du Van is an intimate dining experience for you and three guests. An exotic dish cooked and served to you by candlelight in untypical surroundings.

On the menu for Bite Size: Minotaur

“They’ve given me my most memorable Edinburgh 2010 moment.” Bella Todd, Fringe Review

As featured on BBC Front Row with Kirsty Lang

There are ten 15 minute slots scheduled throughout the day, with slots only available to Day Pass holders. Each performance has a limited capacity of 4. This is a “first come, first served” event, and advanced ticket booking is not available.

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

Sam Halmarack and Tom Wainwright – Psychodrama
A Bristol Ferment scratch commission.

Psychodrama is a form of therapy that can uncover some uncomfortable truths which can be damaging if not managed with sensitivity. Unfortunately, Sam and Tom are reckless amateurs and their psychodrama session looks set to end in gruesome tragedy. Identity is confused and a play gets turned inside out.

Sam is a musician and composer for live performance. His Mayfest 2011 hit Sam Halmarack & the Miserablites, developed in collaboration with Bristol Ferment, will tour this year. Tom is a writer and performer whose recent work includes Muscle with Bristol Old Vic/Hull Truck, and the Theatre Bristol/Bristol Old Vic co-commission, Pedestrian, which toured nationally in 2011 after a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010.

Audience feedback from Bristol Ferment January 2012:

“Extremely funny/most highly entertaining piece of theatre Ive seen in a long time. Pushing boundaries of ‘theatre’”

“Not really sure how to describe it but loved every minute”

“The whole thing was a mixture of joy and sorrow and I absolutely loved it”

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

Little Earthquake – It’s Only A Paper Moon

238,857 miles out in space, a pock-marked sphere of stone exerts a mysterious force over the Earth, brightening the darkest nights and stirring vast ocean tides. Little Earthquake embarks on a fantastic voyage to the fake Moons of the past, present and future, as several sad souls reach out to imaginary lunar landscapes in an attempt to make sense of their earthbound existence.

Supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England; mac; China Plate; Stan’s Café; Warwick Arts Centre; Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton; and the Universities of Warwick, Stirling and Exeter.

Visit Little Earthquake’s website
Visit Little Earthquake’s Facebook Group
Follow Little Earthquake on Twitter

Work in progress. 30 minutes

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

Babakas – Our Fathers

Provider. Teacher. Law-giver. Friend.

Being a father’s no easy job. This is a story of three boys from very different places who grew up, had kids, took decisions, made mistakes, but always tried to do their best. A playful search through sixty years of family life, guided by the hopes and fantasies of three performers whose far-away fathers might just make an appearance.

Babakas is a Birmingham-based international ensemble who hope to make shows that are surprising, generous and honest.

Work in progress. 60 minutes.

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

Adam Peck – ONLY
Developed and commissioned through Bristol Ferment

ONLY is a monologue about being an only child. It’s about growing up, making friends and feeling lonely. It’s about memories of pets and parents, houses and homes, dead people and imaginary friends.

Adam Peck’s ONLY first made an appearance as a performed reading in Bristol Old Vic’s Ferment Festival. It was developed into a fifty-minute performance. This is a thirty-minute extract from that show.

“I loved this show when I saw it in Ferment back in January. A beautifully evocative slice of storytelling; Adam’s easy, conversational style really lets you in to his world. A real gem.”
Catherine Morgenstern, Bristol Old Vic

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

Caroline Horton – Mess

“Welcome to Josephine’s show. (Boris helps… he is important too… well quite important and always does his best). Unflinchingly the pair confront big issues (and extremely tiny ones) and today they will tackle one particularly thin elephant in the room.”

From the maker of award winning You’re Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy

Triggered at Warwick Arts Centre, Commissioned by BAC and Parabola Arts, Supported by The Bush

Work in progress, 30 minutes
13yrs+

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

10 Minute Tasters
Four glimpses into new pieces being made in the West Midlands
(50 minutes)

Francesca Millican-Slater: I Promise to Swim the Channel (or the Story of How I Might)
Work in progress

In times of trouble I run to water, and I know I am not the only one. English coasts are lined with wearied souls who seek answers in horizons, in waves and changing tides. The sea makes my heart lurch like seeing an old lover, makes my stomach contract like when meeting a new one. So in order to get to know it, in order to really understand it, I’m going to swim the channel.
That was two years ago.

And I just moved to the most landlocked city in the country.
The story continues. The swimming continues (sort of).

LCB – Who You Calling Frappucchino
Work in progress

My Dad used to tell me, “Son, If you can make a woman laugh then you’ll always win, even with those big ears of yours.” Partly forgetting that I got them from him.’

Who you Calling Frappuccino? is LCB’s witty response to the Oscar Wilde classic The Importance of Being Earnest. As one of Birmingham’s best up and coming Poets and Story Tellers, LCB takes the audience with him on a ride through his world of micro-stories and observations, boys and their troubles with girls, and accidently falling for Baristas in Starbucks with unlikely tattoos. All told in his own unique style, walking to his own unique beat.

Talking Birds – Decathlon
Work in progress

This is the copy written by Nick Walker about the content of the performance he will be presenting to audiences at around teatime. The copy is a hundred words long and gives a broad indication of the show’s intellectual territory, as well contain a small joke, though it might be hard to spot. Like the work he is presenting, this copy is mainly fiction, with one or two hard facts, and will include a reference to Daley Thompson and the ‘84 Olympics. There will almost certainly be some music in the show, but probably not in the copy.

Teasel Theatre – Grisly Tales from Tumblewater
(excerpt)

Welcome to Tumblewater, not that it’s a welcoming place – unless you’re an undertaker or an umbrella salesman. Caspian Prye, the twisted landowner, controls everything and everyone; even the police. Into this world stumbles Daniel Dorey, a fearless orphan armed only with his wits and a satchel of spine-chilling stories.

Can he bring down Caspian Prye? Can he rescue the girl in the distant room? Can he even stay alive long enough to tell his tales?
Dickens meets Dahl via Horrible Histories with laughs, frights and live music in this playfully gothic one-man adventure for all ages 8+.

Adapted from the novel by Bruno Vincent
Developed with the support of The Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre, Taunton.

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524

Bite Size is a day long showcase of new work from some of the most original and intrepid theatre-makers working in the West Midlands.

Untied Artists – For Their Own Good
Work in progress, 40 minutes
14yrs+

How does our complex and amorphous relationship with other animals affect our own humanity?
Accompanied by a menagerie of exquisitely crafted puppets and automata, two performers investigate the pitfalls of being high up on the evolutionary chain.

Taking source material from interviews and documentary footage of veterinary surgeries, farms, abattoirs, hospitals and homes, this show examines how changing attitudes about how we care for animals might just tell us something about how we care for ourselves.

Devised by the company with text by Arzhang Pezhman

Day passes providing access to all Bite Size performances are availbable for £30 (£28) and can be purchased in person at the Box Office or by calling 024 7652 4524.

The best of British Theatre broadcast live via satellite to screens at Warwick Arts Centre.

*Please note that this is a repeat screening of the live screening on Thu 1 Mar. The live screening is almost sold out, click here for more information

I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? Mad or well advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!

Two sets of twins separated at birth collide in the same city without meeting for one crazy day, as multiple mistaken identities lead to confusion on a grand scale. And for no one more so than Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio who, in search of their brothers, arrive in a land entirely foreign to their distant home.

Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?
Am I your man? Am I myself?

Shakespeare’s furiously paced comedy is staged in a contemporary world into which walk three prohibited foreigners who see everything for the first time. Lenny Henry plays Antipholus of Syracuse.

Running time: 3 hrs 15 mins (including interval)

Enjoy 10% discount off ice creams and sorbets when you pre-order when purchasing your ticket from Box Office or online. Add an ice cream to your basket now or mention to our Box Office when you call to book your ticket. Find out more here

The Ethics of Progress is a mind melting, jargon free, whistle-stop tour of leading edge Quantum Physics, delivered with warmth, wit and charm by Unlimited Theatre’s Artistic Director Jon Spooner.

By explaining in straightforward terms the concepts of Superposition, Quantum Entanglement and Teleportation, The Ethics of Progress pushes theoretical physics into real life situations and imagines the world as it might be in the not-too-distant future.

“… I went into this show with a heavy heart thinking the subject would be over my head. I came out wanting to change the world. Brilliant.” The Guardian

A co-production with Oxford Playhouse and Leeds Met Studio.

Featured in Lyn Gardner’s What to See in 2012 on the Guardian website

Nothing is quite as it first appears in Lily’s world. She seems to have everything… but now and then her pain becomes unbearable.

‘Lily, I have some rather bad news, your soul is decaying.’

Missing is a journey into the depths of a person’s psyche. As Lily unearths her forgotten past the truth changes everything. Her pristine life explodes around her in this incredibly inventive new show.

How do you rescue a dying soul?

Enter GECKO’s brilliantly bizarre world with floating scenes and outrageous apparatus. Your imagination will be turned upside down and inside out!

Disturbing like David Lynch.

Beautiful like Cinema Paradiso.

Brilliant like… GECKO.

Vist Gecko’s website
Follow Gecko on Twitter @geckotheatre

Missing is a Gecko production. Supported by Arts Council England.
Co-commissioned by New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich in association with Warwick Arts Centre and DanceEast.

Running time: 80 mins (approx)

The best of British Theatre broadcast live via satellite to screens at Warwick Arts Centre.

To come to my house, to call for what he likes, to turn me out of my own chair, to insult the family, to order his servants to get drunk, and then to tell me, “This house is mine, sir”. By all that’s impudent it makes me laugh.

Hardcastle, a man of substance, looks forward to acquainting his daughter with his old pal’s son with a view to marriage. But thanks to playboy Lumpkin, he’s mistaken by his prospective son-in-law Marlow for an innkeeper, his daughter for the local barmaid. The good news is while Marlow can barely speak to a woman of quality, he’s a charmer with those of a different stamp. And so, as Hardcastle’s indignation intensifies, Miss Hardcastle’s appreciation for her misguided suitor soars. Misdemeanours multiply, love blossoms, mayhem ensues.

One of the great, generous-hearted and ingenious comedies of the English language, Goldsmith’s She Stoops To Conquer offers a celebration of chaos, courtship and the dysfunctional family.

Running time: 3hrs (including interval)

Enjoy 10% discount off ice creams and sorbets when you pre-order when purchasing your ticket from Box Office or online. Add an ice cream to your basket now or mention to our Box Office when you call to book your ticket. Find out more here