Blackeyed Theatre in association with Theatre Royal Winchester (part of Play to the Crowd) and South Hill Park presents Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty

Adapted by Nick Lane from the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with composer Tristan Parkes.

"When you have one of the first brains of Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities"

London, 1901. As the British Empire wages war in the name of a Queen whose health is failing, a series of mysterious events reveals a crack in the high corridors of power. A crack that threatens to destabilise monarchy, government and Empire. And at its centre, controlling the flow of information and influence, a shadowy figure plans a final deadly move.

Drawn into the game and unsure who to trust, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves confronting figures from their past in a desperate race against time, aware that the most powerful person in the world could be in the pocket of one of the most corrupt. But just how much is Holmes willing to sacrifice as he faces 'checkmate'?

A thrilling adventure, Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty is a world premiere combining powerful performances, a haunting soundscape and innovative design for an exhilarating theatrical experience.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/sherlock-holmes-and-hunt-moriarty

Performed by Anton Lesser, Lucia Bonbright, and Orchestra of the Swan.

Starring Anton Lesser, A Beautiful Thread weaves Hardy's life – dramatic as any of his books – with his beautiful poetry and great novels, including Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. Hardy put more music into his work than any other writer, and Orchestra of the Swan's Artistic Director, David Le Page has devised a musical programme of shimmering beauty - a Mellstock folk band style, that combines West Gallery music with Holst, Warlock and contemporary folk. Adapted by Deirdre Shields, Hardy's extraordinary writing shines bright as ever.

Anton Lesser and Lucia Bonbright bring a hugely varied cast to dazzling life: from Hardy, his mother, Jemima and his wives, Emma and Florence, to George Bernard Shaw, and Virginia Woolf, along with the immortal characters from his novels. The show also highlights Hardy’s humour (often overlooked!), his modernity, the astonishing time-span he lived through, and his global reach, from Hollywood to Japan.

Anton Lesser says: "Words and Music is a kind of unique genre, neither pure reading, nor acting, but with an immediacy that comes from the huge emotional impact the music has upon the words, and vice versa, and the interplay we as actors enjoy with the musicians on-stage. Quite simply, it’s the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done!"

Narrators Anton Lesser, Lucia Bonbright, with Orchestra of the Swan

Director Judy Reaves, Music Director David Le Page, Producer Hambletts

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/beautiful-thread-thomas-hardy-words-and-music

Sevens, a triple bill of Bharatanatyam and Kathak dance with live music from one of the UK's leading choreographers Nina Rajarani MBE.

Seven Snags: A flirtatious courtship, the choreographic equivalent of an obstacle race, this fast-paced ensemble is rhythmic, full of exciting dynamics and laced with challenging cross-rhythms.

Seven Steps: A duet by Nina Rajarani MBE and vocalist/composer Y Yadavan, based on 'saptapadi' (seven steps) With each step, the couple take a vow that is beautiful, simple and timeless.

Seven Sins: This thought-provoking, nuanced piece questions the social norms, performed by the full ensemble of seven dancers and musicians.

Concept, Choreography & Direction Nina Rajarani MBE

Music Composition Y Yadavan & Shammi Pithia

Dramaturgy Lou Cope Costum

Design Sandhya Raman

Lighting Design and Technical Management Chris Cuthbert @acquismedia

Photography Vipul Sangoi, Lucy Barriball, Bheem Adavikolanu

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/sevens

Welcome to The Dusty Show. The celebration of a true British pop icon.

An unforgettable evening of wall to wall hits and classics spanning the decades of Dusty Springfields life and music.

The sensational Louise Anne Masters takes you on a journey to remember through the years of Dusty's impeccable career with the utmost grace, authenticity and vocal performance that is second to none.

Accompanied by her live seven piece band, Louise takes you from the debut I Only Want To Be With You and Stay A While through to the Ready Steady Go Motown era, Dusty In Memphis, Son Of A Preacher Man, the psychedelic Ain't No Sun Since You Been Gone, the pinnacle You Don't Have To Say You Love Me and so many more…

The Dusty Show is the ultimate definition of a musical legacy that touches the soul and a life story that warms the heart.

Come and join us to reminisce in tribute to our very own Queen of British Pop.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/dusty-show

These pirates SO love underpants!

Join our swashbuckling party of pirates on their quest to find the fabled Pants of Gold for the Captain's Treasure chest!

Dodge hungry crocs beneath Long-John Bridge, bob upon the waves of Big Knickers Bay, spot sharks in fancy underpants and trek across Three Pants Ridge.

Filled with music, puppetry and glittering pants of gold, arrr you ready to set sail for a family adventure?

Based on the beloved book by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort, Pirates Love Underpants is suitable for children aged 1+.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/pirates-love-underpants

Celebrating 25 years of groundbreaking performances, The Demon Barbers embark on an exciting anniversary tour.

Renowned for their electrifying fusion of traditional British folk music and high-energy dance, the award-winning band will present a spectacular show featuring fresh new material alongside reimagined favourites from their acclaimed back catalogue.

With multiple awards, including the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for 'Best Live Act', they have captivated audiences across the UK and beyond, and this tour promises an unmissable event for both long-time fans and new audiences alike.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/demon-barbers-25th-anniversary-tour

"When you have eliminated the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"

After their hugely successful portrayals as Sherlock Holmes & Doctor Watson in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Colin Baker (Doctor Who, The Brothers) and Terry Molloy (The Archers, Doctor Who) are back on stage in another classic adventure for the world’s only consulting detective!

"What has become of Captain Morstan and why does his daughter now receive a valuable pearl every year from an anonymous benefactor?

What begins as a curious puzzle soon becomes a terrifying murder hunt, with the discovery of a missing fortune, a locked room and the murdered body of Bartholomew Sholto - but who committed these heinous, inexplicable crimes and how do they involve a map of the far-off Agra Fort?

The Sign Of Four stretches all of Sherlock Holmes’ powers of deduction in a mystery that was born in war-torn India and now stalks Victorian London.

Can Holmes finally bring the gang’s malicious leader to justice, recover the stolen treasure, and reveal the hideous truth behind the riddle of The Sign Of Four?"

Presented by Crime And Comedy Theatre Company as a radio-play-live-on-stage. Our setting is a radio studio, our actors ready as if for a radio broadcast, and our sound effects created live, all combining to transport the audience to Victorian London, as we bring to life this classic tale from the father of the modern detective story, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

A rare chance to see these popular actors, this is a play not to be missed!

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/sherlock-holmes-sign-four-radio-play-live-stage

Experience an unforgettable cinema screening of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. The silent masterpiece with a brand-new live score by Chris Green.

The Film - Nosferatu (1922) is arguably the film that gave birth to the horror genre. Notable as the first cinematic interpretation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, its combination of expressionistic acting and unforgettable images render it just as powerful and unsettling today as when it first thrilled cinema goers 100 years ago.

Chris Green's new score was commissioned by English Heritage for a live outdoor screening of the film at Dracula's spiritual home of Whitby Abbey. The music is a haunting blend of electronic and acoustic instruments performed live by the composer and, combined with FW Murnau's iconic images, makes for a genuinely remarkable and unique cinematic experience.

The Composer - Born into a musical family in Coventry, Green began playing guitar aged eight and piano from nine, and plays most things with fretted strings or keys. Largely self taught, he's worked in a variety of musical genres including folk, theatre and early music. He's a regular musician at Shakespeare's Globe and also one of the musicians on BBC's Poldark, appearing in series 1 and 2.

He also writes and composes, having adapted The Wind in the Willows (2017) for GreenMatthews as well as A Christmas Carol: In Concert (2018), which London Theatre Reviews described as "A delightful show… a lively retelling". In 2018, he released his first solo album Switched-On Playford, which fuses 17th-century dance music with electronica, using a blend of early instruments, synths and loops. It was described by fRoots as "bloody brilliant… an exquisitely-rendered and endlessly satisfying piece of work."

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/nosferatu

P. G. Wodehouse once had a record-breaking five musicals playing on Broadway at the same time. Today his step-Great Grandson Hal Cazalet, with pianist Simon Beck, transports us back to the Golden Age of stage and screen through stories and song.

One of our greatest comic writers, 'Plum' Wodehouse said he wrote his stories like 'musical comedies, without the music'. His musicals between 1915-1935 not only defined the American Musical, but informed the way he crafted his novels and characters.

Celebrate the birth of the American musical with theatrical writing highlights of the last 120 years from Gershwin, Kern, Rogers & Hammerstein, Noël Coward, Stephen Sondheim and many more.

With Simon Beck on piano

Directed and Devised by Hugh Wooldridge

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/play-words-musical-celebration-p-g-wodehouse-broadway

Adapted & Performed by Guy Masterson, Directed by Tony Boncza, from the book by George Orwell

Celebrating 70 years of its publication and 30 years of performance, Guy Masterson reprises his breathtaking solo performance of Orwell's barnyard masterpiece.

Olivier Award winner, Guy Masterson, veteran of smash hit solo works such as Under Milk Wood, A Christmas Carol and Shylock, reprises his globally acclaimed interpretation of Orwell's classic fable.

Famed for bringing multiple characters to vivid life, Masterson gives us Snowball, Napoleon, Squealer, Boxer, Clover, Mollie, Benjamin, Muriel, Sheep, Dogs, Cows, Hens and of course a cat in a riveting, spellbinding performance that will shock, enchant, bewitch and bewilder and linger long in the memory, ringing out Orwell's prescient warning that politicians through the ages and of all creeds and colours will often let power corrupt them… and sometimes corrupt them absolutely…

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/animal-farm

1590, Nuremburg. A divided Europe stands on the brink of modernity.

Stuck in the middle is Frantz Schmidt, executioner, torturer and, most unusually for his times, diarist. As ideals clash against the backdrop of the ancient gallows, Frantz battles to shake off a family curse that has followed him since childhood.

With the arrival of a new assistant a powder keg waiting to blow finally has its fuse.

Drawn from the infamous diary of Frantz Schmidt, Making a Killing explores a world of intrigue and subterfuge and the lengths people will go for personal gain in a corrupted world, with startling parallels to our own.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/making-killing

Rumpus Theatre Company presents a spine-tingling whodunnit… The Ripper Files based on the world's most famous case.

Inspector Lestrange is up to his neck in evidence but there's one fact only the Ripper himself will know.

Charles William Lestrange was a newly promoted Detective Inspector in the Metropolitan Police, just transferred to H Division in Whitechapel, when the The Autumn of Terror, as it came to be known, reached its grizzly height.

Now, thirteen years later, and ably assisted by Samuel Edwards, formerly Detective Constable Edwards of H Division, and Samuel Edward's 'close friend' Miss Elsie FordHam, rising star of the music hall stage, Lestrange rehearses again for your delectation and delight the ghoulish events in Victorian Whitechapel which have been a source of universal fascination since the 1880's…

…anyone wishing to leave the auditorium during the performance as a consequence of excessive fright or terror is respectfully requested not to do so in the middle of a 'murder'!

Jack's back… and he just can't wait to play!

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/ripper-files

"I thought I might have to go on without you"

Called up to fight in World War II in the summer of 1940, the Manchester Guardian journalist Gerard Fay joined the army as an ordinary soldier while his wife Alice or 'Loll' (short for Lollipop) remained in the north of England.

On the 80th Anniversary year of VE Day, Dear Loll brings to the stage the candid and compelling correspondence between the young couple.

The thousands of intimate letters are their only means of communication and are full of drama, humour and emotion. Writing virtually every day, sometimes twice a day, their correspondence over four years is previously unheard testimony to the experiences of ordinary people in World War II and gives a fascinating insight into how one couple survived, both physically and mentally. They describe the warp and weft of a marriage and the loneliness of separation – a grief that was shared by tens of thousands.

Starring Daisy Waterstone (Margot from ITV's The Durrells) & Charlie Hamblett (Netflix's Missing You)

With live onstage music from the Le Page Ensemble

Adapted by Rosanna Greenstreet and Matthew Fay

Director Judy Reaves

Music arranged by David Le Page

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/dear-loll-wartime-marriage-letters

Follow the scandalous true story of a Suffragette-turned-Fascist in this time bending cabaret.

VENUS 2.0 is a high-octane dance theatre experience exploring the chaos and turmoil of the early 20th-century.

Six chameleonic dancers take you on a white-knuckle ride through the evolution of Fascism. Enter a world of explosive physicality, hilarious cabaret and an obsession with the future. Why did it start? How does it stop? Where does it end?

Award winning company IMPERMANENCE create genre-bending, ground-breaking productions, touring nationally and internationally to critical acclaim.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/venus-20

Live on stage and in person, television favourites Colin Baker (Doctor Who, The Brothers) and Peter Purves (Blue Peter, The Office) lead the cast in a new adaptation of Charles Dickens' Christmas classic - which also features a rare, specially recorded appearance by Tom Baker (Doctor Who, Monarch Of The Glen) as Jacob Marley!

"He was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge – a squeezing, grasping, covetous, old sinner!"

On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge is warned by the ghost of his late partner, Jacob Marley, that he will be visited by three Spirits - Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. Together they whisk Scrooge to the past and his happy boyhood Christmastimes, to the present to meet Tiny Tim at Bob Cratchit's Christmas feast, and finally to the future and Scrooge’s own miserable grave - all attempting to show him the error of his ways. But will Scrooge wake on Christmas morning a changed man?

Presented by the Crime And Comedy Theatre Company as a radio-play-live-on-stage, our setting is a radio studio, our actors ready as if for a radio broadcast, and our sound effects created live - all combining to transport the audience to Victorian London, for this 180th anniversary production of Dickens’ timeless tale of charity, forgiveness and redemption at Christmas.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/christmas-carol-radio-play-live-stage

A traditional family pantomime written and directed by Robin Belfield, music by Simon Slater

Get ready for the purrr-fect swashbuckling Christmas adventure!

Life is tough for Colin the poor Miller's son, no money, no job and no chance of impressing the beautiful princess.

It's just him and his faithful cat, Puss.

However, Puss is no ordinary feline and soon turns Colin from zero to hero and adventures begin.

But they're going to need all the help they can get if Colin’s going to save the day and win the heart of the Princess.

Full of PAW-some gags, original songs and loads of audience participation, it's going to be MEOW-gic!

Puss in Boots is kindly supported by Paris Smith.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/puss-boots

Following on from A Christmas Carol: In Concert and A Brief History of Christmas, GreenMatthews present their new festive show.

Spanning several centuries, GreenMatthews' Midwinter Revels is a celebration of Yuletide Past guaranteed to warm the cockles of the most Scrooge-like heart.

Featuring Christmas carols, winter folk songs, toe-tapping tunes and a plethora of weird and wonderful instruments, the show is brought to life with GreenMatthews' trademark wit and humour.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/midwinter-revels

Tilted Wig and Mayflower Southampton, in association with Theatre Royal Winchester: part of Play to the Crowd, presents Spitfire Girls by Katherine Senior

Inspired by remarkable true events

"It's built for us, isn't it? The Spitfire. Built for women."

New Year's Eve, 1959.

Decades after answering the call, two women separated by the war meet again as the rain hammers down on the windows of The?Spitfire?pub.

As we hear their story, we’re transported back to a time when female pioneers defied expectations and soared through the skies.

Spitfire?Girls?is inspired by the extraordinary true stories of the women who dared to fly during WWII and the incredible bond that tied them together.

Funny and heart-warming, this is an untold story of strength, courage and loss. But above all else, hope.

Spitfire Girls?was developed with the support of the National Theatre's Generate programme.

This production contains themes of war.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/spitfire-girls

In this classic tale of greed and guilt, Flabbergast's?Macbeth?fuses a rigorous and respectful approach to text and storytelling to bring a magical, lucid interpretation of Shakespeare's blood-soaked tragedy to life.

They present the bard’s original text accompanied by and supported with exhilarating live music creating a powerful live soundscape creating an atmosphere that both compliments and juxtaposes the action.

A tightknit ensemble of actors performs a dark and visceral manifestation of the work’s essence and underlaying themes.

Flabbergast gives us an instinctive interpretation of Shakespeare's most wretched tragedy, working to draw out the parallels with modern society. At its heart, the dominant recurring theme and fundamental narrative that powers?The Tragedy of Macbeth?is the masculine fear of feminine power; and in this sense, the play is as pertinent today as it has ever been.

www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/whats-on/macbeth