South West

BRISTOL Old Vic (0117 987 7877) David Farr adapts Paradise Lost, Jan 30-Feb 21; Loot, Mar 5-27; Tour Mother Courage; Studio Backpacking in Kangaroo Valley, Feb 11-28; Bristol (and South Gloucestershire) Schools Festival, Mar 1-5, Bristol Youth Theatre Festival, Apr 3-4 ;Tour Cloudland.

EXETER Northcott (01392 493493) Private Lives, Feb 5-28; Richard Bean’s The Mentalists, Mar 19-Apr 3; Young Company’s Around the World in Eighty Days, Apr 10-17.

SALISBURY Playhouse (01722 320333) Waters of the Moon to Feb 7; Ayckbourn’s House, Feb 12-Mar 20; Children of a Lesser God, Mar 25-Apr 10; Stage 65 Youth Theatre in Cyrano de Bergerac, Apr 15-17; Jamaica Inn, Apr 29-May 22; Amanda Whittington’s 1960s expectant mothers in Be My Baby, June 10-26; Much Ado About Nothing, Sept 3-2; Tour, The Trojan Women. Salberg Studio Ayckbourn’s Garden, Feb 12-Mar 20; Stage 65 Youth Theatre in Our Town, Mar 25-27; Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys, Apr 22-May 15; Tours, Catch Your Breath, One in a Million.

SOUTHAMPTON Nuffield (023 8067 1771) Last Train to Nibroc to Feb 21; The Adventures of Mr Benn Mar 6-7, daytimes, for 4-8s (and others); abridged Twelfth Night, Mar 15-26; Schiller’s Mary Stuart, Apr 22-May 15; John Retallack’s tale of youth; Ballroom, July 9-10 (at Southampton Guildhall); Hampshire Youth Theatre 12-15s in The Great Gromboolian Plain, Jul 24-31; 16-25s in Arabian Nights, August 1-14; Tours, A Doll’s House, Once Upon A Time in Wigan, Pugilist Specialist, Slamdunk, The Straits; Studio Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Mar 27-29; May 24-29.

South

BASINGSTOKE Haymarket (01256 465566) From Oldham Good Golly Miss Molly, Feb 24-Mar 13; Hay Fever, Apr 26-May 15; two of Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests, Round and Round the Garden, and Living Together, June 3-24.

CHICHESTER Festival Theatre (01243 781312) in rep, Cole Porter’s Out of This World, Apr 29-Sept 25; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, May 8-Sept 23; Kipling-made musical Just So, June 11-Sept 25; Bulgakov’s fantasy novel, The Master and Margarita, Jul 23-Sept 24.

Minerva Theatre Helen Cooper’s new Three Women and a Piano Tuner, May 28-Jul 3; Botho Strauss’ surreal Seven Doors, Jul 9-Sept 25; Martin Crimp’s (after-Sophocles) Cruel and Tender, Aug 4-Sept 4; a peripatetic mass-cast Doctor Faustus Sept 8-25.

HORNCHURCH Queen’s (01708 443333) Educating Rita, February 6-28; Romeo and Juliet, Mar 12-Apr 3; Private Lives, Apr 16-May 8; rock and roll musical, Keep On Running, May 21-June 12.

NEWBURY Watermill (01635 46044) Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd to Mar 27; Alex Jones’s play about post-1945 Germans in Argentina, Mr and Mrs Jones, Mar 30-Apr 3 (also touring locally); Rodney Bewes’s one-man Three Men in a Boat, Apr 6-10; 17th century Spanish comedy, Lope de Vega’s The Gentleman from Olmedo, Apr 14-May 22; 18th century Italian, Goldoni’s, The Venetian Twins, May 26-Jul 10.

SONNING Mill (0118 969 8000) Just Between Ourselves to February 21; The Face of Fear; Feb 24-Apr 3; You’re Only Young Twice, Apr 6-May 8; An Evening With Gary Lineker, May 11-June 19; Stepping Out, June 22-Jul 31; There Goes the Bride, Aug 3-Sept 4.

East Midlands

COLCHESTER Mercury (01206 573948) Macbeth, Mar 18-Apr 3; Marivaux’s The Triumph of Love, Apr 29-May 15; Euripides’s Ion, June 10-26; Tours, 84 Charing Cross Road, The Shell Seekers, Tom’s Midnight Garden; Studio Short new plays, Slammers II, June 16-26.

DERBY Playhouse (01332 363275) Shirley Valentine, Jan 31-Feb 28; Private Lives, Mar 6-Apr 3; Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Apr 24-May 22; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, May 29-Jul 3.

IPSWICH New Wolsey (01473 295900) Neville’s Island, Feb 27-Mar 20; Tours, Bloodtide, Mother Courage, Once Upon A Time in Wigan, The Rivals, Romeo and Juliet, Slamdunk, Soulskin, The Straits.

NORTHAMPTON Royal (01604 624811) Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking, Feb 26-Mar 20; Terry Johnson’s Americana Insignificance, Apr 23-May 8; PG Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning, May 21-June 5 ;Tours, 84 Charing Cross Road, Mother Courage.

NOTTINGHAM Playhouse (0115 941 9419) Double Indemnity, Mar 12-Apr 3; Updated New Labour satire, Feelgood, Apr 30-May 22; Jonathan Holloway on US pioneers, Angels Among the Trees, June 5-19; The Railway Children, June 25-Jul 10; Tours, Mother Courage, Slamdunk.

West Midlands

BIRMINGHAM Repertory Theatre (0121 236 4455) David Edgar’s Continental Divide, Mar 6-13, consists of his new, full-length American plays Mothers Against, and Daughters of the Revolution; Anglo-American fundamentalism in Alistair Beaton’s Follow My Leader, Mar 26-Apr 10; Ayckbourn’s three full-length views of a suburban weekend, The Norman Conquests, a bus tour round Brum in Riding the No. 8, June 29-Jul 17; Tours, A Doll’s House, Mother Courage, Slamdunk. Door Robert Warrington’s new family comedy Forward, Feb 5-28; Caribbean Kitchen, Mar 3-6 for 7-11s; On Blindness, Mar 23-27 (see Leeds); American amnesia comedy, Fuddy Meers, Apr 16-May 8; Beyond the Boundaries, and Fierce! Festival, May 24-June 5, promises cutting-edge performance; young writers’ season Transmissions, June 16-Jul 3; storytelling fest, The Word Is Out, Jul 12-17; Chicken Shed in Chris Bond’s play about a teenager in London’s social underbelly, Alice on the Underground; Tours, Calcutta Kosher, Catch Your Breath, Pugilist Specialist, The Straits.

COVENTRY Belgrade (024 7684 6700) Treasure Island, Mar 30-Apr 17; Tours, 84 Charing Cross Road, The Shell Seekers.

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON Royal Shakespeare (0870 609 1110) Royal Shakespeare Theatre Beauty and the Beast to February 22; tragedies in rep Macbeth, Mar 6-Oct 2; Romeo and Juliet, Mar 25-Oct 1; King Lear, June 17-Sept 29; Hamlet, Jul 8-Oct 2; Swan Othello to Apr 3; rep of Spanish Golden Age plays, Lope de Vega’s romantic comedy The Dog in the Manger, Apr 14-Oct 2; Tirso (“Don Juan”) de Molina’s revenge tragedy, Tamar’s Revenge, Apr 28-Oct 2; Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz farce ,House of Desires, June 30-Oct 1; Cervantes’s likeable rogue, Pedro, The Great Pretender, Sept 1-30.

Wales

MILFORD HAVEN Torch (01646 695267) Youth Theatre’s Macbeth, Feb 27-28; Table Manners, May 27-29; Tour, Under Milk Wood. MOLD Clwyd Theatr Cymru (0845 330 3565) One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest to March 6; Hay Fever, May 6-29; Tours, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 84 Charing Cross Road, Mother Courage, The Woman in Black. Emlyn Williams Theatre The Greatest Drummer in the World, Mar 23-24; Waiting For Godot, Apr 29-May 22; Tours, Bare, Cloudland.

North West

BOLTON Octagon (01204 520661) David Halliwell’s 60s student-aggro comedy, Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs, Jan 29-Feb 21; Paul Webb’s story of Thomas ... Becket’s murderers in retreat, Four Knights in Knaresborough, Mar 4-27; Ben Elton’s media violence morality, Popcorn, Apr 1-24; Diane Samuels’s drama of children fleeing the Nazis, Kindertransport, Apr 29-May 22; Richard Cameron’s miners on the eve of pop revolution, The Glee Club, June 10-Jul 3; Tours, Black Tie and Tales, Screaming Blue Murder, Women of Owu.

KESWICK Theatre By The Lake (017687 74411) The Hired Man, Mar 27-Apr 17, summer rep season to November 5; Sailor, Beware! from May 29; Arms and the Man from June 11; Strangers on a Train from Jul 23; Tour, Women of Owu; Studio in rep, Joe Penhall’s BlueOrange from May 29; Ghosts from June 18; Julie McKiernan’s play about speeding on Coniston, Tramping Like Mad, from July 30.

LIVERPOOL Everyman (0151 709 4776) Calderon’s The Mayor of Zalamea, Feb 13-Mar 6; love versus prejudice in Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman, Apr 16-May 8; from Manchester Royal Exchange, Basil and Beattie, May 11-15; new writing fest, Every Word, May 31-June 5; Katie Douglas on repressive small-town life, Fly, June 18-Jul 10; Tours, Pirandello’s Henry IV, The Merchant of Venice, Slamdunk, The Straits. Playhouse (0151 709 4776) The Entertainer to February 7; Coward’s Still Life, plus The Astonished Heart, Mar 19-Apr 10; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, May 28-June 19; Tours, Abigail’s Party, Mother Courage, The Permanent Way, Philadelphia, Here I Come, The Quare Fellow, Sweeney Todd.

LANCASTER Dukes (01524 598500) Kafka’s Dick, Feb 6-28; True West, Mar 12-Apr 3; in Williamson Park, The Canterbury Tales, Jul 2-Aug 7, adapted by Gareth Machin.

MANCHESTER Contact (0161 274 0600) Season of identity and young men includes Firebrand’s Asian music scene, Made in England, White Trash, Mar 11-20; Massive Theatre’s The Sons of Charlie Peora, Mar 16-20; Tours, Calcutta Kosher, Pugilist Specialist, Slamdunk, Soulskin.

Library Theatre (0161 236 7110) All My Sons to March 13.

Royal Exchange (0161 833 9833) Great Expectations, Feb 25-Apr 10; John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, Apr 14-May 8; Major Barbara, May 12-June 19; The Importance of Being Earnest, June 23-Aug 7. Studio Bruce Graham’s Coyote on a Fence, Mar 24-Apr 10; Linda Brogan’s Basil and Beattie, Apr 21-May 8, brings a couple from Jamaica and Ireland to Manchester’s Moss Side; Ben Faulks’s experimental double-bill distortions of reality, Jonathan Pram, May 20-22; Sonia Hughes’s story of a Caribbean girl whose mother’s left for England, Weeding Cane, May 27-29; Amanda Dalton’s Dog Boy, June 3-19 for 9+; Write 2, July 5-17; Blue 2, Jul 22-24.

OLDHAM Coliseum (0161 624 2829) Good Golly Miss Molly, Jan 29-Feb 21; Driving Miss Daisy, Mar 18-Apr 10; Amanda Whittington’s Be My Baby, Apr 22-May 8; The Wizard of Oz, May 21-June 12; Neville’s Island, June 24-Jul 17; Tour, Once Upon A Time in Wigan.

Yorkshire amp; North East

HARROGATE Theatre (01423 502116) Ain’t Misbehavin’ to March 6; Ayckbourn’s Things We Do For Love, Apr 2-24; Tour, The Rivals.

HULL Hull Truck (01482 323638) Richard Bean’s 3-decker Under the Whaleback, Feb 26-Mar 20; John Godber takes to the air with Fly Me To The Moon, Apr 5-May 1; seaside landladies in Alison Watt’s Life’s A Beach (also touring), Amanda Whittington’s touching story of 1960s single mums, Be My Baby, May 27-June 19; more Godbers: Black Tie and Tales, June 28-Jul 3; Up ‘N’ Under, Jul 8-31.

LEEDS West Yorkshire Playhouse (0113 213 7700) Quarry Theatre, Homage To Catalonia, Mar 15-Apr 3 - Orwell’s book is co-adapted with Northern Stage Ensemble and Barcelona’s Teatre Romea; Haiti’s independence bicentenary celebrated in song and dance with Vodou Nation, June 1-26; Tour, The Merchant of Venice.

Courtyard Frantic, Graeae and Paines Plough combine skills of movement, disability and text in Glyn Cannon’s story of love and access, On Blindness, Mar 16-20; Murray Gold examines the frustration of builders occupying your house in Electricity, Mar 26-Apr 24; new Northern plays in repertoire, Uglijesa Sajtinac’s Huddersfield and Andrew G Marshall’s Coming Round Again, May 15-June 5, plus Mark Catley’s play of teenage fatherhood, Crap Dad, June 9-12 (also touring Leeds schools); true-life based, US Bat Boy The Musical, June 21-Jul 17; Tours, Animal Farm, Dummy, The Permanent Way.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE Newcastle Playhouse (0191 230 5151) Multi-media Blush, Feb 20-21; Northern Stage Ensemble in Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, Apr 22-May 8; Gulbenkian Studio Northern Stage Ensemble in Ionesco’s The New Tenant, Feb 23-March 6.

SHEFFIELD Crucible (0114 249 6000) The Crucible to February 28; Piaf, Mar 12-Apr 7; Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine June 3-19; Studio visit during schools tour of Neil Duffield’s The Minotaur Feb 21-27, matinees and evenings; Churchill’s Far Away, and Fen, double-bill, May 27-June 19.

YORK Theatre Royal (01904 623568) Pilot Theatre adapt Melvyn Burgess’s Bloodtide to February 21; A Taste of Honey, Mar 16-Apr 3; Tour, The Quare Fellow; Studio Mrs Dylan Thomas speaks in Caitlin, to March 6; Ensemble Productions with Leon Rosselson’s The Greatest Drummer in the World, Mar 9-13; The Shysters in Tango Apocalypso, Mar 18-19; NT Shell Connections, Mar 25-27; The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Apr 1-24.

Scotland DUNDEE Rep (01382 223530) David Kane’s theatrical types in Dumbstruck, Mar 24-Apr 17; Howard Barker’s Scenes from an Execution, Apr 27-May 8; City Theatre Dublin in The (Kerry) Matchmaker, May 26-29; Tours, Reasons to be Cheerful, The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband.

EDINBURGH Royal Lyceum (0131 248 4848) Death of A Salesman, to March 6; Des Dillon’s Coatbridge witchcraft comedy, Six Black Candles, Mar 13-Apr 3; John Byrne’s Scottish Chekhov Uncle Varick, Apr 17-May 8.

GLASGOW Citizens’ (0141 249 0022) Top Girls, Feb 6-28; Tours, A Doll’s House, The Merchant of Venice, Wee Witches.

Circle Studio Smoking With Lulu, Feb 5-28.

Stalls Studio Zinnie Harris’s Nightingale and Chase, Feb 4-28.

PERTH Theatre (01738 621031) Educating Rita, Feb 20-Mar 6; John B Keane’s The (Kerry) Matchmaker, Apr 16-May 1; Tours, A Doll’s House, The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband.

PITLOCHRY Festival Theatre (01796 484626) in rep, name?? WS Gilbert’s satire on Victorian romance from Apr 30; Edward Percy’s The Shop at Sly Corner from May 6; Ayckbourn’s A Small Family Business from May 13; Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me A Tenor from May 20; John Byrne’s Scottish version of Gogol’s The Government Inspector from June 24; Conor McPherson’s modern Irish pub ghost-tales, The Weir from Jul 29.

ST ANDREWS Byre (01334 475000) Much Ado About Nothing, Feb 26-Mar 13; Stanza poetry festival, Mar 18-21; The Memory of Water, Apr 15-May 1; Tours, Bartleby, Tunnel Visions, Wee Witches. Studio Michael Gow’s dog-tale, Sweet Phoebe, Apr 20-May 1.