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THREE NEW INHOUSE SHOWS AT THEATRE N16

 THE X FACTOR 2016 LIVE TOUR

Sheffield Arena

Friday 11th March

The X Factor Live Tour returns to Sheffield Arena next week, starring winner Louisa Johnson alongside finalists Anton Stephans, 4th Impact, Reggie ‘N’ Bollie, Lauren Murray, Che Chesterman, Mason Noise and Seann Miley Moore performing classic songs and viewers favourites from the TV series.

The X Factor 2016 Live Tour is a countrywide tour stopping off at Sheffield Arena on Friday 11th March with contestants performing classic songs and viewers’ favourites from the TV series.

Attended by over three million people, The X Factor Live Tour has been one of the most successful annual arena tours in the UK for the past eleven years. Tickets are on sale now so don’t miss the opportunity to catch this year’s stars live.

Tickets purchased online at www.sheffieldarena.co.uk or via the ticket hotline on 0114 256 5656 are priced £60.50, £38.50, £21.45 (including booking fee) with family tickets £203.52, £132.00 (including booking fee).

Tickets purchased in person at the Arena box office are priced £57.75, £36.75, £20.48 (including booking fee) with family tickets £194.24, £126.00 (including booking fee).

Don’t miss the opportunity to catch this year’s stars live in Sheffield.

ELLIE GOULDING

Sepcial guest John Newman

Sheffield Arena

Saturday 12^th March 2016 

Ellie Goulding will perform a Sheffield Arena headline debut next week on Saturday 12th March as part of a UK tour.

The tour comes hot-on-the-heels of her third studio album ‘Delirium’, released in November on Polydor Records.  It has been a whirlwind few years for the singer from Herefordshire. Since the release of her debut ‘Lights’ in 2010, she has sold over 20 million records, had two Number One albums, won two Brit Awards and had Vevo views and streams both in excess of one billion. This year’s ‘Love Me Like You Do’ single, meanwhile, was a worldwide Number One hitting the top spot in 70 countries and breaking the record for the most streamed song in one week. Some artists might be inhibited about where to go after such success but Goulding had no doubts: make everything bigger, better and braver.

Support for Ellie Goulding’s 2016 UK tour is John Newman. One of the major breakthrough artists in the UK in recent years,Newman followed his Top 5 smash hit single “Come And Get It” with the eagerly awaited release of brand new second album “Revolve”. The follow up to Newman’s Platinum selling number 1 debut “Tribute”,   “Revolve” looks set to confirm the Yorkshireman  as one of the UK’s most singular talents and consistently successful  artists.

The success of  “Come And Get It” follows  John’s  recent collaboration with Calvin Harris on the no. 1 Global smash “Blame” which has sold over 4 million worldwide and has been streamed an unbelievable 270 million times. “Blame” gave John his third UK no. 1 single following Rudimental’s “Feel The Love” and his own chart-topping debut ”Love Me Again”.

Tickets for Ellie Gouldin with special guest John Newman  are available online atwww.sheffieldarena.co.uk, via the ticket hotline on 0114 256 5656 or in person at the Arena box office.

Tickets purchased online or by phone are priced £38.50 including booking fee.  Tickets purchased in person at the Arena box office are priced £36.75 including booking fee.

OF MICE AND MEN

The Touring Consortium Theatre Company celebrates 20 years with a new tour of John Steinbeck’s classic which comes to Darlington Civic Theatre from Tuesday 15 to Saturday 19 March.

Two migrant farm workers held together by a mutual dependence, a deep affection and an undying loyalty go in search of new beginning in the hope of attaining their shared dream: of putting together enough money to buy a small piece of land and building a home. No strangers to trouble, George and Lennie soon find themselves reeling from the fallout of an innocent misunderstanding which spirals out of control and leaves the two men, bound together by friendship, facing an earth-shattering climax. A story, raw in speech and action, full of heart and unflinching realism, it remains one of the most poignant statements of being human our contemporary theatre has produced.

The cast for Of Mice And Men includes Dave Fishley as ‘Crooks’, Nicholas Goode as ‘Whit’, Saoirse-Monica Jackson as ‘Curley’s Wife’ Neil McKinven as ‘Carlson / Boss’, Kristian Phillips as ‘Lennie’, Jonah Russell as ‘Slim’, and William Rodell as ‘George’, Ben Stott as ‘Curley’ and featuring Dudley Sutton as ‘Candy’.

Dudley Sutton is best known for his role in the BBC classic Lovejoy but is also a renowned stage actor who began his career starring in some of the most iconic plays of the sixties, including Jo Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane and Tom Murphy’s A Whistle In The Dark. Over the course of his career he has worked with legendary directors including Federico Fellini, Derek Jarman, Sally Potter and Ken Russell.

Created by producer Jenny King, The Touring Consortium Theatre Company will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2016. Jenny King said, “The company was created in 1996 in response to a need expressed by chief executives of several of the UKs leading touring venues for quality text based drama that reached out to new, young audiences as well as sustaining the interest of core theatre goers. Since its creation we have produced over twenty three productions and played to over a million people, and involved some 25,000 young people in our workshops and creative learning programmes.”

There is a Stage Tour available on Saturday 19 March at 11am. This is a free event but tickets are required as numbers are restricted. Please call the box office on 01325 486555 to reserve a space.

On opening night there will be live music from ‘The Tennessee Three’, re-creating the music of Steinbeck’s era. With a repertoire taken from artists like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly and Hank Williams this trio will play the toe tapping and heart wrenching songs that were the soundtrack to America in the 1930s and 40s.

Of Mice And Men is at Darlington Civic Theatre from Tuesday 15 to Saturday 19 March.

Tickets* £17.40 to £27, discounts available. Thursday and Saturday matinees all seats £18.50. Family ticket Saturday 2.30pm £44. Under 16s and schools all seats £11 plus 1 free with every 10 booked.

To book contact the Box Office on 01325 486 555 or visit www.darlingtoncivic.co.uk

*All prices include a £1 restoration levy

THE PROVOCATIVE AND VISCERAL EDINBURGH FRINGE HIT

THE CURING ROOM

RETURNS TO LONDON

VAULTS THEATRE

4 – 29 MAY 2016

The Curing Room, David Ian Lee’s powerful play, which caused a huge stir at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and subsequently played a limited season at the Pleasance Islington, will return to London this summer with a four week run at the Vaults Theatre, Waterloo from 4 – 29 May, with a press night on 4 May.

Provocative, thought-provoking and at times darkly funny, The Curing Room is a bold, daring thriller based on true events, in which the ensemble of 7 male actors perform the show completely nude. Originally written and developed in New York with a series of workshops and public readings, The Curing Room marked its inaugural production in Edinburgh with the following cast, who will return to London: Rupert Elmes, Tom Holloway, Matt Houston, John Hoye, Harvey Robinson and Marlon Solomon. John Last will join the cast.

Spring 1944 – seven Soviet soldiers have been captured by the Nazis, stripped naked and abandoned in the locked empty cellar of a monastery in southern Poland. Deprived of all resources and ties to the world they knew, the prisoners must redefine their concepts of order and human nature and confront the ultimate taboos – murder and cannibalism – in order to survive…

Joao de Sousa said, “In spite of the moments of brutality and gore The Curing Room is a beautifully staged production with an undercurrent of hope and humanity. I’m thrilled to bring the show to new audiences at the Vaults, who’s subterranean setting so ideally suits the design of our production that I feel like it is almost site-specific!. It’s a thriller that shines a light on dark side of human behavior that is as old as humanity itself – and was inspired by an allegedly true anecdote recalled in George Steiner’s seminal work The Death of Tragedy.  However, what precisely befell these seven men ‘in the last year of the war’ will forever remain conjecture – as will the identities of the men themselves.”

DIRTY DANCING – THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE

NEW TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED

WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON

WILL VISIT NEW CITIES IN UK AND IRELAND

NOW BOOKING UNTIL SUMMER 2017

Producers Karl Sydow and Paul Elliott are delighted to announce that 12 new dates will be added to the UK and Ireland tour of the brand new production of Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage.. The classic story of Baby and Johnny, featuring the hit songs ‘Hungry Eyes’, ‘Hey! Baby’, ‘Do You Love Me?’ and the heart stopping ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’, returns to the UK this summer, following two blockbuster West End runs and two hit UK tours. Casting will be announced in the spring.

Full of passion and romance, heart-pounding music and sensationally sexy dancing, the record-breaking musical is even better than before in this all new production created by an innovative new creative team; directed by Federico Bellone, choreographed by Gillian Bruce and with design re-imagined by top Italian set designer Roberto Cometti. The production premiered in Milan in July 2015, subsequently packing out the 15,000 seat Roman Arena in Verona, and has played a season in Rome, and will shortly be embarking on a major Italian tour.

The new venues for 2017 announced are as follows: Southend Cliffs Pavilion (10 – 21 January) [tickets on sale 4 March], Belgrade Theatre Coventry (30 January – 4 February), Dublin Bord Gais Theatre (6 – 11 February) [tickets on sale soon], Millennium Forum, Derry (13 – 18 February), Grand Opera House Belfast (20 – 25 February), INEC Killarney (27 February – 4 March), Ipswich Regent (20 – 25 March), Cardiff New Theatre (27 March-1 April) [on sale soon], Wycombe Swan (3 – 8 April), Leicester DeMontfort Hall (10 – 15 April), Hall for Cornwall Truro (17 – 22 April) [on sale soon], Milton Keynes Theatre (24 – 29 April), Birmingham Alexandra (29 May – 3 June).

As previously announced, following a 2 week season at the Kursaal Ostend in Belgium, the new UK production will open at the Blackpool Opera House on 11 August 2016 and will play the following venues: Orchard Theatre, Dartford (1 – 10 September), Grand, Swansea (12 – 17 September), Aylesbury Waterside (19 – 24 September), New Theatre, Wimbledon (26 September – 1 October), Palace Theatre, Manchester (10 – 15 October), Grand Opera House, York (17 – 22 October), Carlisle Sands Centre (24 – 29 October), Northampton Derngate (31 October – 5 November), Regent Theatre, Stoke (7 – 12 November), Kings Theatre, Southsea (14 – 19 November), Reading Hexagon (21 – 26 November), and Wolverhampton Grand Theatre (28 November – 3 December).

Casting to be announced after Easter.

MARVEL UNIVERSE LIVE! ACTION SPECTACULAR

ADDS ADDITIONAL UK DATES DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND

Tickets for new Marvel Universe LIVE! dates go on sale Friday 4^th March 2016

SHEFFIELD – 1^st March 2016 – Due to huge customer demand the spectacular live action family arena show, Marvel Universe LIVE! Super Heroes Assemble, has added a string of new dates for its UK tour that touches down in Sheffield in January next year.

Tickets for the new show on 21^st January 2017 at the Sheffield Arena go on sale to the public at 9:00am on Friday 4^th March.

The show is taking the live entertainment experience to a whole new level, with an epic show unlike anything seen before. Bringing together the largest assembly of Marvel characters in a live production, audiences will be able to watch some of their favourite Marvel Super Heroes step out of the silver screen and onto the stage – bringing the action to life right before their eyes.

Everyone will be able to cheer for their favourite Marvel Super Heroes, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and more, as they battle Loki and Marvel’s most sinister villains in a live, action-packed arena performance for the whole family. It’s being hailed as the most technically advanced live show ever, with cutting-edge special effects, pyrotechnics, aerial stunts, martial arts, motorcycles and more.

From the creative team that brings you such arena spectaculars as Disney On Ice, Feld Entertainment Inc, the world’s leading producer of touring live entertainment is excited to announce the UK tour of Marvel Universe LIVE! This arena stunt spectacular will be swinging into six major UK cities – Nottingham, London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Sheffield and Manchester – for an electrifying run of over 40 shows that have already entertained almost 2 million families in over 65 US cities to date in its first tour.

“We are delighted to bring Marvel Universe LIVE! to the UK, giving families an opportunity to enjoy this spectacular live show for the very first time. The audience will feel like they’ve been transported into a jaw-dropping Marvel blockbuster film, with an engrossing storyline and non-stop stunts”, said Steven Armstrong, VP of Europe North at Feld Entertainment, Inc.

Featuring over 50 cast members and taking over two years to research and develop, Marvel Universe LIVE! utilises some of the latest innovations in arena set design and aerial pyrotechnics, with stunts developed by the team from Hollywood blockbuster, Thor, and the recent The Amazing Spider-Man films. The set includes innovative lighting design, transformative 3D projection, 21 projectors, the largest flying system ever used for a live arena tour and the debut of a new Spotlight Tracking System.

Marvel Universe LIVE! will be in Sheffield from 19^th – 22^nd January 2017 at the Sheffield Arena.

“To see all the elements of this spectacular live show come together has been truly incredible,” said Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada. “The technology utilised in the show is not only going to blow your mind, it is going to take you to a whole new Marvel world like nothing British families have ever seen before.”

Join Marvel families for this monumental performance. The fate of the universe depends on it!

The additional Sheffield show for the Marvel Universe LIVE! UK tour is as follows:

Tickets for the additional show go on sale on 4^th March and will be available from the Marvel Universe LIVE! website at: www.MarvelUniverseLive.co.uk or direct from the Sheffield Arena Box Office on 0114 256 56 56 or www.sheffieldarena.co.uk.

Eager fans can sign up to receive the latest show information from:http://www.feldentertainmentpcsignup.com/

The website also features the complete list of UK tour dates and fans can check the latest news and announcements via social media:           

·         Facebook:  www.facebook.com/MarvelOnTour

·         Twitter:  @MarvelOnTour

·         Instagram (@MarvelOnTour)

HighTide and Arcola Theatre present
THE SUGAR-COATED BULLETS OF THE BOURGEOISIE
by Anders Lustgarten
Directed by Steven Atkinson

• HighTide & ARCOLA THEATRE PRESENT WORLD PREMIERE OF NEW PLAY BY AWARD-WINNING ANDERS LUSTGARTEN

• THE SUGAR-COATED BULLETS OF THE BOURGEOISIE WILL RUN AT THE ARCOLA 7 – 30 APRIL BEFORE OPENING HIGHTIDE FESTIVAL IN SEPTEMBER

• HighTide CELEBRATES A DECADE OF NEW WRITING BY ANNOUNCING ITS 10TH  ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL ON 15 MARCH
  

Ahead of revealing its full tenth anniversary programme on 15 March, HighTide has announced today that, alongside the Arcola Theatre, they will present a brand new play by Anders Lustgarten. The play will run at the Arcola from 7th April before opening HighTide Festival in September.

The Sugar-Coated Bullets of The Bourgeoisie will reunite Lustgarten, who won the inaugural Harold Pinter Prize for If You Don’t Let Us Dream We Won’t Let You Sleep (Royal Court), with HighTide Artistic Director, Steven Atkinson whose recent credits include Forget Me Not,peddling and Bottleneck. The pair’s previous collaboration was the acclaimed production of Lustgarten’s powerful play about the refugee crisis, Lampedusa, (HighTide/Soho Theatre). Based on almost a decade of study, The Sugar-Coated Bullets of The Bourgeoisie is an urgent and timely new play that explores the lives of the Chinese people in two eras, during the rise of Maoist China, and in 2016, an increasingly diverse, volatile, $11 Trillion economy on the precipice of change.

The production’s 8 strong cast of British East Asian actors includes Andrew Leung (Chimerica,You For Me For You) and Anna Leong Brophy (P’yongyang).

Revolution has stirred, China has stood up and Communism reaches Rotten Peach Village. Over the next sixty years, the villagers are battered by the waves of New China, lurching from the extremes of Maoism to the extremes of capitalism. Yet amid all the change and turmoil, one thing does not alter: their willingness to fight.

HighTide, one of the UK’s leading new writing organisations focused on developing emerging playwrights, will celebrate its tenth anniversary in September 2016. The annual festival in Suffolk has showcased some of the UK’s most well-respected new writers of the last decade including Luke Barnes, Vickie Donoghue, Ella Hickson, Nick Payne, Beth Steel and Jack Thorne. The full 2016 programme will be announced on 15 March.

Anders Lustgarten has completed a BA, MA and PHD in Chinese language and politics. The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie is a take on his PHD topic. His play Lampedusa, about refugees and migration, was produced by HighTide last year and is being performed in seven countries in 2016. His play Shrapnel: 34 Fragments of a Massacre premiered at Arcola in March 2015, directed by Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen. He recently adapted David Peace’s novel The Damned United for Red Ladder and the West Yorkshire Playhouse, and his play The Seven Acts of Mercy, about Caravaggio and violent compassion, will be produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre later this year.

Steven Atkinson is co-founder and the Artistic Director of HighTide Festival. His directing credits for HighTide include Forget Me Not (Bush Theatre); So Here We Are (Royal Exchange Theatre); Lampedusa (Soho Theatre); peddling (Arcola Theatre/ Off-Broadway); Pussy Riot: Hunger Strike (Bush Theatre/ Southbank Centre); Neighbors (Nuffield Theatre); Bottleneck (Soho Theatre/ UK tour); Clockwork ; Bethany; Incoming; Dusk Rings A Bell (Watford Palace Theatre); Lidless (Trafalgar Studios); Muhmah (HighTide Festival) and The Pitch (Latitude). His other productions include Chicken (Paines Plough Roundabout) and The Afghan and the Penquin (Radio 4).

CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR

HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES

NICHOLAS LE PREVOST & JENNY SEAGROVE

JASON MERRELLS & TAMZIN OUTHWAITE

MATTHEW COTTLE & GILLIAN WRIGHT

TO STAR IN

ALAN AYCKBOURN’S COMEDY OF MARITAL MANNERS

DIRECTED BY ALAN STRACHAN

One secret love affair. Two disaster-bound dinner parties.

Three couples headed for trouble.

Casting has been announced for Bill Kenwright’s new West End production of Alan Ayckbourn’s farcical tale of matrimonial mishaps, How The Other Half Loves. The 1969 classic – the first of Ayckbourn’s plays to be staged on Broadway – returns to London to play the Theatre Royal Haymarket from Wednesday 23 March 2016 – Saturday 25 June, with a press night on 31 March.

As Bob and Fiona clumsily try to cover up their affair, their spouses’ intervention only adds to the confusion. William and Mary Featherstone become stuck in the middle, falsely accused of adultery and with no idea as to how they’ve become involved. The plot culminates in two disastrous dinner parties on successive nights, shown at the same time, after which the futures of all three couples seem in jeopardy…

Olivier Award nominated star of stage and screen Nicholas Le Prevost will play ‘Frank Foster’ oppositeJenny Seagrove as ‘Fiona Foster’. Jenny starred in Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular in the West End in at the Garrick in 2007, and is best known for her role as ‘QC Jo Mills’ in ITV’s Judge John Deed.

Jason Merrells – one of TV’s most popular actors from roles in Lark Rise to Candleford, Cutting It andWaterloo Road, and recently seen as ‘Juror Number 8’ in Twelve Angry Men, will play ‘Bob Phillips’ opposite Tamzin Outhwaite as ‘Teresa Phillips’, known for her numerous lead television roles such as ‘Melanie Owen’ in EastEnders and ‘Rebecca Mitchell’ in Hotel Babylon. She returns to the Haymarket after her starring role in Sweet Charity, and it was Ayckbourn who gave Tamzin her first professional role in a play twenty years ago in Absent Friends at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.

Matthew Cottle, star of BAFTA nominated Game On, and most recently seen in Ayckbourn’s A Small Family Business at the National Theatre in 2014, will play ‘William Featherstone’ opposite Gillian Wright as ‘Mary Featherstone’. Gillian is nationally known for her award-winning role as ‘Jean Slater’ in EastEnder

LWL Investments and Entertainment presents: