Mercury Theatre Colchester has today announced a wide range of entertainment scheduled for their 2024 season including their new Mercury Production of David Greig and Gordon McIntyre’s play with songs Midsummer, the previously announced Mercury Original world premiere of Martha Loader’s Bindweed and performances by David Suchet, Seann Walsh, Joe Pasquale and Colchester Operatic Society 2nd Edition’s production of Legally Blonde: The Musical. Tickets for the newly announced productions are available for priority booking from 10am today with general on sale from 10am on Friday 1 December.
Penned by award-winning playwright, David Grieg, and composed by songwriter, Gordon McIntyre, Midsummer is a rose-tinted musical rom-com that provides a fast-paced, funny look at love, life, and the ache of aging. The Mercury Production will run from 3-18 May in the Mercury Theatre.
One Midsummer night in Edinburgh, two ill-matched thirty-somethings – a high-powered, hard-¬drinking lawyer called Helena, who’s stuck in a dead-end affair with a married man, and a small-time crook called Bob – collide with one another for one short night of wild abandon. It’s an unlikely coupling as both are all too aware, but it’s Midsummer and anything can happen…
The Mercury’s creative director Ryan McBryde (Baskerville, The Comedy of Errors) will direct the riotously funny, touchingly romantic 90-minute tour d’amour in all its drunken, horny, heartfelt glory.
The Mercury Theatre, HighTide & New Wolsey Theatre, in association with the Royal Exchange Theatre, will present the world premiere Mercury Original production of Martha Loader’s award-winning play Bindweed. The production will run in the Mercury Studio from 13-22 June, followed by a run at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich.
Bindweed is a shattering and darkly funny new play about responsibility and rehabilitation, which looks at what can be done to tackle abuse at its root.
Written by Martha Loader, Bindweed was first written as part of the Mercury Playwrights scheme and won the Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022. Loader, who is from Ipswich, has had her work presented by HighTide, Mercury Theatre, Cambridge Junction, and INK. She is an Associate Artist of the New Wolsey Theatre and is currently working on commissions from Menagerie Theatre Company, and the Almeida Theatre as part of the ‘Genesis New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme’.
Newly Announced
David Suchet makes his eagerly-awaited return to the stage in Poirot and More: A Retrospective, which will take place in Colchester on 13 February in Mercury Theatre. Audiences will get to experience a rare opportunity with one of the world’s most celebrated and fascinating actors of our time with a conversation with the man, the actor and his many roles in an unmistakably unique event. The show provides a retrospective look at David’s career allowing the audience to witness some of his most beloved performances in a new and intimate light.
Seann Walsh (The Stand Up Sketch Show, Celebrity Juice) will bring his new show Back from the Bed to Colchester on 3 April in Mercury Theatre. The show will feature beloved segments from his acclaimed Same Again? tour alongside new material based on the last few years of human life. 
Hit producers Entertainers – the team behind, The Magic of Motown, Lost in Music and Fastlove – will bring to the Mercury Theatre, the tribute shows The Marvin Gaye Songbook on 16 April and Give Me The Night on 22 May.
Featuring a live band of West End musician and starring West End and X Factor star Nate Simpson, The Marvin Gaye Songbook will include all the hits: I Heard it Through the Grapevine, Sexual Healing, What’s Going On?, through to Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Too Busy Thinking About My Baby, and many more.
Give Me The Night will star world-renowned leading man Nat Augustin in the George Benson tribute show that brings the audience hit after hit: Never Give up on a Good Thing, Love Times Love, In Your Eyes, Lady Love Me (One More Time), Shiver, The Greatest Love of All, Turn Your Love Around, On Broadway, Feel Like Making Love and many, many more.
Europe’s No.1 Dire Straits Show, Money For Nothing, will head to Mercury Theatre on 26 April. Featuring all of their legendary hits including Money for Nothing, Romeo and Juliet and Sultans of Swing – audiences are treated to those soaring guitar solos and instantly recognisable riffs by an incredibly talented band in a musical encounter you will never forget.
Joe Pasquale, who has been showing off on stage for over 40 years, is bringing his favourite things for another airing to show that things have never been normal at the Mercury Theatre on 27 April.
Nasty – an autobiographical, confessional piece of theatre explores the hidden side of what it means to be a woman – will be brought to the Mercury Studio on 10 May. Picking apart the truth and literally picking their bogies, Amy and Rio tell their own stories of their experiences with everything ranging from eating disorders to pooing themselves. Some stories are funny, some are sad and some are just downright strange. But what connects all of them, is that everybody in the audience can relate to at least one. 
Direct from London’s West End, now in their 9th spectacular year, The Magic of the BeeGees will play at the Mercury Theatre on 24 May. The concert spectacular will feature beloved songs including Night Fever, Stayin’ Alive, More Than a Woman and many more.
Direct from a sold-out run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Six Chick Flicks will perform at Mercury Theatre on 5 June. The smash-hit comedy parodies beloved chick flicks in one hysterical, fast-paced show. From the deck of the Titanic to the glittery pink halls of Harvard Law, watch as New York City comedians Kerry Ipema and KK Apple transform the stage with songs, dance breaks, and pop culture hilarity.
Fresh on the heels of his critically acclaimed memoirs, Nailing It, Montana’s transatlantic messenger Rich Hall heads to the Mercury Theatre on 6 June with Shot From Cannons featuring new rants, knife-edge observations, thrilling musical interludes and an ever-formidable knack for laughs on the fly.
Calling Planet Earth will bring the music of the 80s to the Mercury Theatre on 7 June. The tribute show will feature the greatest hits of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Ultravox, ABC, Depeche Mode, OMD, The Human League, Tears for Fears, The Police, Soft Cell, Japan, and many more.
Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt are back on tour for the first time in 10 years and will play the Mercury Theatre on 8 June. Older but not really much wiser, they are returning to what they do best; sitting in traffic jams wondering if a different route would have been better, and then in the evening, presenting their new live show. What have they learned from a decade of following the news for Mock the Week and The Now Show? What wisdom has experience taught them? And have they learned any new jokes? Let’s hope so. They promise they have.
Tickets can be bought at www.mercurytheatre.co.uk
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