Fact File: Birmingham Rep and Birmingham Royal Ballet

Birmingham Repertory Theatre is the only producing theatre in city.

The oldest building-based theatre company in the UK, The REP has an unparalleled pioneering history and has been at the forefront of theatre in this country for over 100 years. It is a registered charity.

The REP’s mission “is to create artistically ambitious popular theatre for, by and with the people of Birmingham and the wider world”.

Over the last 15 years, the company has produced more than 130 new plays. As well as presenting over 60 productions on its three stages every year, the theatre tours its productions nationally and internationally. Its acclaimed learning and outreach programme is one of the largest and most diverse of any arts organisation in the country.

Many of The REP’s productions go on to have lives beyond Birmingham.

Recent tours and transfers include The Lovely Bones, Brief Encounter, Nativity! The Musical, What Shadows, LOVE, The Winslow Boy, The Government Inspector, Of Mice and Men, Anita and Me, Penguins and The King’s Speech.

Based at Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham Royal Ballet is the United

Kingdom’s leading touring ballet company performing a range of traditional, classical and heritage ballets as well as ground-breaking new works with the aim of encouraging choreographers of the future.

The Company’s Director since January 2020 is the internationally renowned Carlos Acosta.

BRB performs at Birmingham Hippodrome for approximately ten weeks of the year and the remainder of the year tours throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. On average, the Company performs 175 shows a year nationally and internationally.

DEAR Editor, I cannot believe that the government is considering 10 years imprisonment for lying on a passenger form to dodge quarantine.

Has this actually been sanctioned in Parliament yet?

I do not think judges will be very happy to deal with this in the judicial system when they have more urgent cases to deal with.

The sentences are equal to grave offences such as child cruelty and assaults.

K Roberts, by email