A Dazzling Dance Line Up at Newcastle Theatre Royal
From the return of Canada’s Ballet BC with emotionally charged works by Crystal Pite and Johan Inger, to the eagerly awaited return of Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures. This is a celebration of dance in all its stunning forms.
Ballet BC, Canada’s leading contemporary dance company make their highly anticipated return to Newcastle (Tue 27 & Wed 28 May 2025), taking on Crystal Pite and Johan Inger’s incredible choreography. Traversing a vast landscape of human emotion, from the intimate to the societal with a sonic journey as beautifully complex and captivating as the movement throughout, incorporating contemporary, ballet and tap dance, this is an unmissable performance of world class dance.
Those anticipating more Matthew Bourne will delight when award-winning New Adventures production The Midnight Bell comes to Newcastle Theatre Royal for the first time in 2025. Inspired by the great English novelist Patrick Hamilton, whose stories were bourne out of years of social interactions with the working man and woman at his favourite location – the London pub, this production features a tavern where one particular lonely-hearts club gather to play out their lovelorn affairs of the heart; bitter comedies of longing, frustration, betrayal and redemption.
Presented by Newcastle Theatre Royal and Gem Arts Masala Festival, the Aakash Odedra Company visit the venue with their stunning work, Songs of the Bulbul (Mon 14 Jul 2025). A tribute to it’s choreographer’s mother, his smiling bulbul who left her cage, this production is ephemeral and a tale of beauty born of loss and of the freedom found only in the ultimate sacrifice. Rooted in expansive music, dance, and poetry traditions, this piece emerges as a sensitive dialogue between the ferocious physicality of Kathak and the spiritual journey of Sufism, a path seeking unity with the Divine.
In Autumn, an exciting new collaboration between Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre based on one of the most operatic of Handel’s English oratorios will grace the Grey Street stage (Fri 7 Nov 2025). Choreographed by Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director, Marcus Jarrell Willis, in collaboration with Director Olivia Fuchs, dance and opera combine in a reimagining of the Susanna and the Elders biblical story, from which emerges a biting parable for our times.
Finally, Matthew Bourne’s magical double Olivier Award-winning production of legendary Powell and Pressburger film The Red Shoes will dazzle your senses and break your heart when it returns to Newcastle (Tue 28 Apr – Sat 9 May 2026). Matthew Bourne’s take on the intoxicating drama where life imitates art with fateful consequences, is set to a score orchestrated by Terry Davies, and is a production not to be missed.
Tickets for all productions can be purchased at www.theatreroyal.co.uk or from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 0191 232 7010.
Image: Artists of Ballet BC in PASSING, Photo by Luis Luque
