A COLOURFUL collection of characters is joining the diamond

anniversary celebrations at Nottingham Playhouse – with the

likes of the Kray Twins, Engelbert Humperdinck and an

ex-Eastender taking to the theatre's stage over the coming

months.

The Playhouse has unveiled an autumn-winter season featuring

tales of obsession, tragedy and comedy to mark its 60th

birthday. Artistic director Giles Croft directs the season's

opener, in September. Vertigo is a taut psychological thriller

about madness and obsession.

"Although most of audiences will know the Hitchcock film,

our adaptation returns to the roots of the original novel,"

says Giles.

"Although the theme is the same – a man becoming obsessed

with a woman who reminds him of somebody else he thought had

died – our version is set in Paris during and after the

war."

All Quiet on the Western Front, the classic First World War

tale told from a German perspective, is revived after a

successful run at the Playhouse two years ago. Giles directs

James Alexandrou – Martin in BBC soap EastEnders – in a new

adaptation that captures the pity of war from an unusual

perspective.

The original novel, by Erich Maria Remarque, of Derby's

German twin town of Osnabruck, is hailed as one of the great

anti-war tales and, according to Giles, remains resonant

today.

A week-long run in October is followed by a national

tour.

Something wicked this way comes when Shakespeare's epic

study of tyranny, Macbeth, arrives on the Nottingham stage

after its premiere in Edinburgh. A co-production with

Edinburgh's Lyceum theatre, Giles insists this is a radical

remake of the Scottish play – because it returns to the work's

roots.

"It's very rare to see a performance of Macbeth set in

medieval Scotland featuring Scottish characters," he

insists.

The new year sees the return of an old face, popular

Nottingham writer Stephen Lowe, whose comic drama about Brian

Clough – The Spirit of the Man – was a hit with Nottingham

audiences.

Glamour is a new play commissioned by the Playhouse which

has its world premiere in February.

"It's an autobiographical story based on an untold chapter

in Stephen's early career," Giles reveals.

"As a young budding film-maker, Stephen worked behind the

bar and in the ticket office of a Nottingham cinema called

Moulin Rouge. It would screen dodgy naturist movies alongside

arthouse films by directors such as Jean Luc Godard and

Francois Trauffat.

"In his attempt to get his own film, Blue Movie, made and

screened, a series of extraordinary events unfold, involving

Engelbert Humperdinck and the Kray Twins."