Image Credit: "Sadler's Wells" by Ungry Young Man is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, click here

Sadler’s Wells has announced its productions for autumn 2021, including from Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, and Birmingham Royal Ballet. 

Matthew Bourne’s new production The Midnight Bell explores the under-belly of 1930s London life, where ordinary people emerge nightly to pour out their passions, hopes and dreams in pubs and bars. Inspired by the English novelist Patrick Hamilton who created some of the most authentic fiction of his era; stories borne out of years of social interactions with the working man and woman at his favourite location - the London pub. 

Birmingham Royal Ballet will present a triple bill, including two recently premiered works and the world premiere of a new pas de deux created especially for Carlos Acosta and Alessandra Ferri: City of a Thousand Trades, Imminent, and Chacona. Live music will be performed by Birmingham Royal Ballet's orchestra, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. City of a Thousand Trades and Imminent are Ballet Now commissions, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s programme to find exciting, diverse, international creative talent.

Candoco Dance Company will return with a double bill from two boundary-breaking New York based choreographers. The evening begins with Set and Reset/Reset, a recreation of Trisha Brown Dance Company’s seminal Set and Reset, and Jeanine Durning’s Last Shelter. 

Richard O’Brien’s legendary rock ‘n’ roll musical, The Rocky Horror Show returns to the Peacock Theatre as part of a sell-out worldwide tour, having been seen by over 30 million. Starring Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba as Brad, The Rocky Horror Show is a guaranteed party and features timeless classics.   

Award winning choreographer Jasmin Vardimon will also return to Sadler’s Wells with her adaptation of the classic fairy tale, Pinocchio. Based on the original book by Collodi, the piece brings to life the famous marionette as he embarks on becoming a human boy. The work combines physical theatre, characterisation, technologies, text and dance to examine the idea of what it means to be human.