With some trepidation and more than a little cautious optimism we’re incredibly pleased to be able to bring you a full season of theatre, music and family performances this spring. It’s again thanks to the enthusiasm, faith, and dedication of our volunteer promoters at our village halls and community spaces that has made this possible in these uncertain times.
The season begins on Friday 18th February with the brilliantly bananas La Bella Band, who are on the search for the fabled Lost Chord of Ulaanbaatar, and Mambo Jambo join us with a tour bus brimming with music and instruments from around the globe. There’s also the first of our Creative Highlights workshops – Gelli Printing with Vega Brennan.
March brings some great live music to our stages with BBC folk-award winner Maddie Morris and stunning jazz vocalist Zoë Gilby and her quartet.
Two new dramas Here’s What She Said To Me by Utopia Theatre and Miss Nobodies by Ruth E Cockburn chart the lives of women from two very different backgrounds, sharing their struggles, joys and tragedies from a small Lancashire town and an African migration.
There’s two hilarious and immersive who-dunnits – Death of the Great Detective and The Matinee Murder from murder-mystery maestros Highly Suspect, and Curious Investigators by One Tenth Human is an inventive and participatory exploration of physical problem-solving for 3-7 year olds and their grown-ups.
Our series of workshops continues with Mini Textile Landscapes with Kate Slaughter, teaching you everything you need to create your very own piece of textile art.
Music and dance abound in the second half of the season, with lockdown tales from the Isle of Lewis in Elsa Jean McTaggart’s When The World Stood Still. In Stitch In Time: A Knitting Cabaret, long-forgotten knitting songs from the second world war are lovingly brought back to life by Melanie Gall in a scintillating evening of needle-clicking and song.
Rob Heron and Tom Cronin of Tea Pad Orchestra fame play a stripped back acoustic set of their trademark ‘North-Eastern Swing’, while Slanjayvah Danza bring their fiery fusion of flamenco, Scottish and contemporary dance to life in 6 Feet, 3 Shoes.
Lubna Kerr combines theatre, storytelling and comedy in her semi-autobiographical play Tickbox, which follows a Pakistani woman’s journey from a middle-class life in Pakistan to Govan in Glasgow.
Also based in Glasgow is Townsend Theatre Productions’ Yes! Yes! UCS! featuring live rock and folk music and recounting the plight of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders and their famous ‘work-in’ of 1971. Norwich Puppet Theatre bring a fresh to the well-loved tale of Pinocchio and the apocalyptic Last Quiz Night On Earth returns to Highlights after it’s original run in Spring 2020 was curtailed due to coronavirus.
We round up our Creative Highlights workshops with Mokume Gane by Helga Put and Willow Weaving by Anna Turnbull.
For full details about all the performances and workshops please see our What’s On page and you download your very own copy of the Spring 2022 brochure here.
We hope that our new Spring Season offers something for everyone and we very much look forward to seeing you at one of our spring performances.
With best wishes,
Kate L, Heather, Kate H & Matt
The Highlights Team