Brief Encounter returns in Birmingham REP's new season

The line up for the latest Birmingham REP season has been announced, which features a world premiere and revivals from writers including David Edgar, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti and James Graham.

Returning to the theatre is the REP's production of Kneehigh's Brief Encounter which is adapted and directed by Emma Rice. The show will run from 2 to 17 February and is a version of Noel Coward's 1945 film about love.

Elsewhere in the season the theatre will host the world premiere production of Bhatti's play Elephant. The Behzti playwright's new work looks at family, forgiving and forgetting. It runs from 15 February to 3 March.

Director Calixto Bieito returns to the UK with The String Quartet's Guide to Sex and Anxiety, which focuses on the relationship between anxiety and sex. Bieito is a Spanish theatre director known for his radical interpretations of opera.

In another premiere, playwright Edgar will make his performing debut in the auto-biographical play Trying It On, also written by Edgar. The piece will be directed by Christopher Haydon and looks back over the last 50 years of Edgar's working life.

Truth by Helen Chadwick and Steven Hoggett is a fusion of choreography and song which addresses the notion of truth in the modern age. The show runs between 17 and 19 May.

The full season includes the already announced revival productions of The Winslow Boy from 21 February to 3 March, Quartet by Ronald Harwood, from 6 to 10 March, This House from 16 to 21 April and The Kite Runner from 13 to 24 March.

Bryony Lavery's adaptation of Graham Greene's iconic Brighton Rock will also run at the REP from 10 to 14 April.

Artistic director Roxana Silbert said: "This season we are reflecting the increasingly turbulent times we live in with stories that explore this extraordinary era."