New season of one-night stands and visiting shows revealed for Stephen Joseph Theatre

A packed programme of visiting productions has been announced for the late spring and onwards at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre.
Sherlock Holmes' adventure The Sign of Four is brought ot the stageSherlock Holmes' adventure The Sign of Four is brought ot the stage
Sherlock Holmes' adventure The Sign of Four is brought ot the stage

They are:

Wednesday May 1 and Thursday May 2: The Edit, by Sarah Gordon. Presented by Folio Theatre Company in association with Salisbury Playhouse, this gripping new play explores the question: if you could rewrite your past, would you?

Friday May 3: Pianist Young-Choon Park makes a welcome return to the theatre, performing works by Mozart, Schubert and Chopin.

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Saturday May 4: Luke Wright, Poet Laureate. Following a sell-out run in Edinburgh, poet Luke Wright returns with the show the critics are calling his best yet.

Tuesday May 7: Violet, from new playwright Bebe Sanders and the award-winning Poor Michelle Productions, explores inter-generational friendship, mental health, dementia and loneliness, not forgetting the often funny and absurd moments of ordinary life.

Saturday May 9: Poet John Hegley returns with his new show New and Selected Potatoes – an exuberance of songs, drawings, poems and baroque dance steps encompassing furniture, fig rolls, fisher-birds and a trip to Rotherham Library.

Tuesday May 14: Script Club and Boundless Theatre present Drip – a one-man musical comedy by award-winning Tom Wells (words) and Matthew Robins (music).

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Wednesday May 15: Door-to-Door Poetry. Rowan McCabe is the world’s first Door-to-Door Poet. This funny and thought-provoking mix of spoken word and theatre follows him on his adventures around the North East of England.

Monday May 20 to Wednesday May 22: The Isle of Brimsker, a new multi-sensory story of adventure and homecoming from Frozen Light, specialists in making theatre for audiences with profound and multiple learning disabilities.

Thursday May 23 to Friday May 31: Pictures of Dorian Gray. Jermyn Street Theatre in association with the Stephen Joseph presents a bold and beautiful new adaptation of Wilde’s classic novel by Lucy Shaw. The cast switch roles, creating different casting possibilities on different nights: a female Dorian looks at the portrait. And a male face looks back at her.

Friday May 24: Salomé. Hybrid dance theatre company EDIFICE presents a work of dark theatre with captivating live music performed by five musicians from Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra and based on Wilde’s Salomé.

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Tuesday May 28 and Wednesday May 29: Dot By Dot Productions presents HONK!, adapted from Hans Christian Andersen’s story by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe: a musical egg-stravaganza with puppetry, magic and illusions... and water guns.

Thursday May 30 to Saturday June 1: Blackeyed Theatre’s The Sign of Four: adventure, romance, comedy and one or two rather brilliant deductions – the epic Sherlock Holmes tale in a new adaptation by Nick Lane, writer of the theatre's Christmas shows Pinocchio, A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol and Alice in Wonderland.

Tuesday June 4: Part comedy play, part cookery demonstration, Ragged Edge Productions’ The Chef Show, by Nick Ahad, take the audience behind the scenes on a busy Saturday night in the local curry house.

Wednesday June 5: Deaf Steve presents Adventures in Dementia. Steve Day’s dad has Alzheimer’s. Steve is deaf, but has new hearing aids. If you like bittersweet comedy about deafness and memory loss, this is the show for you!

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Thursday June 6 and Friday June 7: WILDCARD presents Electrolyte, by James Meteyard with music and lyrics by Maimuna Memon: a multi-award-winning piece of gig theatre that powerfully explores mental health for a contemporary audience.

Saturday June 8: The Showstoppers’ Kids Show and Showstopper! The Improvised Musical. Spontaneous musical comedy at its finest - two shows creating musicals from scratch from audience suggestions.

Saturday July 27 to Saturday August 24: all the usual Tiny Time Tales interactive fun and nonsense for the smallest members of the family in Lottie Gets Lost in Bookland, written and directed by Cheryl Govan and based on classic stories by Hans Christian Andersen.

Monday October 14 to Saturday October 19: the John Godber Company and Theatre Royal Wakefield present John Godber’s latest play Gym and Tonic – a laugh-out-loud comedy about trying to find a moment of calm in these challenging times.

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The visiting shows will join the already-announced schedule of ‘Made in Scarborough’ productions: Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis by Charlotte Jones, directed by Gemma Fairlie (March 28 to April 20); Richard Harris’s Stepping Out, directed by Paul Robinson (June 20 August 2); Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings (July 25 to September 28) and Birthdays Past, Birthdays Present (September 4 to October 5), both directed by the author; The Monstrous Heart by Oliver Emanuel, directed by Gareth Nicholls (October 3 to 19 – a co-production with the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh); and Treasure Island, adapted from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel by Nick Lane, with music and lyrics by Simon Slater, directed by Erin Carter (December 5 to 29).

Tickets for all the shows are priced from £10, and will go on sale from Friday March 1 (with priority booking for the theatre’s membership scheme, The Circle, from Friday February 15) and can be booked at the box office on 01723 370541 or via the website: www.sjt.uk.com