Home-grown and shared productions in Ipswich this autumn

The autumn season at the New Wolsey Theatre starts and ends with music. The opening production is Our House by Tim Firth, a musical comedy inspired by the music of Madness directed by the theatre’s artistic director Peter Rowe. After its Ipswich performances (22 September to 5 October) it will go on a national tour between 8 October and 23 November.

From 9 to 12 October Transport brings its “reinvention” of Shakespeare’s As You Like It to the theatre, followed between 15 and 17 October by the Paines Plough and Watford Palace Theatre production of Jumpers for Goalposts, well received when it premiered in June. That’s followed by The Lovesong of Alfred J Hitchcock from New Perspectives Theatre Company and Leicester’s Curve Theatre on 18 and 19 October.

Opera della Luna makes a return visit from 21 to 23 October; this time it’s The Mikado – which somehow seems to have relocated itself to the flashy world of modern fashion houses from medieval Japan. A Peter Shaffer double-bill – The Private Ear and The Public Eye – from Original Theatre Company and Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre takes the stage from 4 to 9 November; it opens at its parent theatre at the end of August directed by Alastair Whatley and starring Jasper Britton.

Then it’s panto time. This year it will be Dick Whittington in Rowe’s best rock’n’roll mode. Expect some twists to the traditional tale between 21 November and 25 January. The New Wolsey, of course, has a studio theatre, in St George’s Street where a programme of shows for children is interleaved with more adult fare.

Look out for After the Rainfall (26 September), A Clockwork Orange (27 and 28 September and Salida Productions’ Formby (2 November). RashDash offer The Ugly Sisters on 10 November and one of this year’s centenaries gains a slightly different focus with Allegra Productions presentation of Robin Brook’s irreverent Britten’s Got Talent from 20 to 23 November.