Yvonne Arnaud Theatre News

The UK Pantomime Association has announced the nominations for The Pantomime Awards in association with Butlin's.

The renowned dance company Ballet Central will return to touring this spring with a four-month programme visiting 11 mid-sized theatres across England. 

Rooted in the everyday lives of four women finding themselves truly out of their comfort zones, Sheila’s Island examines what lies beneath the superficiality of office relationships. With vulnerability, viciousness, painful honesty and great wit, we can all see some of ourselves in Sheila, Denise, Fay and Julie.

Chatback Theatre has announced the cast of the coming-of-age hit If This is Normal, which is heading on a UK tour this April.  Critically acclaimed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019 and VAULT Festival in 2020, the show is set in the no-man’s land between childhood and adulthood, complicated by unfiltered access to technology and pop-feminism.

Red Entertainments Dead Lies, written by No.1 Best Selling Crime Novelist Hilary Bonner, will receive its world premiere this Spring opening at The Queen's Theatre, Barnstaple (14-16 April) prior to a UK Tour.

The Orange Tree Theatre today announces the full cast for Franz Xaver Kroetz's Tom Fool, translated by Estella Schmid and Anthony Vivis. Diyan Zora directs Anna Francolini (Martha), Jonah Rzeskiewicz (Ludwig) and Michael Shaeffer (Otto).

ViSiBLE, a theatre company dedicated to creating work focused on later life, today announce the full cast and new dates for the world première of Five Characters in Search of a Good Night's Sleep, devised by Mike Alfreds and Sonja Linden with the company - Geraldine Alexander, Andrew Hawkins, Sally Knyvette, Gary Lilburn and Vincenzo Nicoli.

The multi award-winning musical phenomenon SIX, written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, today announces a new cast for the UK tour. The current company will play their final performance on Sunday 6 March with the new company taking over from Tuesday 8 March at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford.

UK Theatre is launching Love Your Local Theatre, a new campaign encouraging the public to support their local theatres as they begin to recover from the impact of Covid. Over 100 theatres UK-wide have come together to join in on the effort and offer the biggest ever 2-for-1 ticket offer to National Lottery players who attend a show during the month of March.

Olivier Award winner Sara Crowe, Eastern Eye Award winner Rina Fatania, Judy Flynn, and Abigail Thaw will star in Yvonne Arnaud’s production of Sheila’s Island by Tim Firth.

Future Spotlight Productions in collaboration with KidZania London today announced that Cinderella will be available Stream.Theatre from 17 December until 10 January 2022. Filmed in the immersive city of KidZania, Cinderella is a festive production for all ages, featuring a West End cast, audience interaction and much-loved pantomime characters.

Celebrated Australian performer Barry Humphries AO, CBE will take British audiences on a revelatory trip through his colourful life and theatrical career when he tours the UK in April & May 2022 with Barry Humphries: The Man Behind the Mask.

Casting is announced for the UK tour of Two Cigarettes in the Dark, a brand new play by Stephen Wyatt, directed by Alan Strachan, designed by Simon Higlett and produced by Jonathan Church Theatre Productions and Cambridge Arts Theatre.

Olivier Award winner Sara Crowe (Private Lives, Aldwych Theatre; Calendar Girls the Musical, UK Tour and West End; Four Weddings and a Funeral), Eastern Eye Award winner Rina Fatania (Waking/Walking, Kiln Theatre; Dead Dog in a Suitcase, UK and International tour), Judy Flynn (The Brittas Empire, BBC; Dinnerladies, BBC), and Abigail Thaw (Endeavour, ITV) have been cast in Yvonne Arnaud’s production of Sheila’s Island by Tim Firth (Calendar Girls, Kinky Boots, The Band). 

Frantic Assembly, in association with TEA films, have announced a week of streamed performances of I Think We Are Alone by Sally Abbott (The Coroner; Vera), the tour of which was cut short in March 2020 by the global pandemic.

This Autumn, be part of a live theatrical treasure hunt with Percy the Park Keeper as you help him get his animal friends ready for winter.  Forest school meets puppetry, world-class theatrical storytelling and clue-based adventure in this unique, non-stop 60-minute experience, designed especially for Chiswick House and Gardens.

Following the success of Pickled! in 2019, Tori Scott returns to the UK with her brand new show Welcome to the After Party! Produced by Robin Rayner & James Quaife for New Frame Productions, the show will tour to London, Guildford, Cambridge and Tunbridge Wells this Autumn with Musical Director Ben Papworth.

Just opened!  Don't miss Michael McManus's brilliantly witty radio theatre play MAGGIE & TED at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford this week, running until Saturday 16th October.  Stars Martin Jarvis as 'Ted' Heath and Clare Bloomer as Margaret Thatcher. 

The UK Tour of Flinch will open at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford on Saturday 6th November, before heading to Bristol, Bradford, Scarborough, and Leicester. It will then return to London, at the Pleasance Theatre, for a limited run.  

“Maggie” Thatcher (Clare Bloomer) and “Ted” Heath (Martin Jarvis) strolled through Westminster earlier this week ahead of their appearance in Michael McManus’s smash hit radio theatre play “Maggie & Ted”.