Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Come and join us for the start of our 2019 social calendar with our Friday night quiz, hosted once again by Richard Warren.  No bookings for teams will be taken this year, if you’d like to register a team, registration will be from 7.15, with the quiz starting at 8pm.  See you then! 

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

If you missed our first '*Meeting*' event back in May 2018, these events are about bringing together new groups of creatives and performers to form dynamic and unique events - where nobody meets until they step out on stage. That's right. Everything is improvised. This time '*Meeting 2.0' * brings seven actors together and puts the power in your hands. Through new software developed by Coventry electronica legend Morocco Dave the audience will be able to control lighting, sound, and projections through the miracle of twitter, so get your phones out for this one. As the sights and sounds around the stage change the seven actors improvisations will change with them. We have no idea what will happen, but that's the best part.

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Please come along if you are interested in joining the Criterion Social committee.  Tonight’s meeting is specifically about the Earlsdon Festival, so if you’d like to assist in the planning of this event, we’d love to see you.  Thanks    Nicole 

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

We would like to welcome you to come and join us at the Criterion Theatre for the Earlsdon Festival, where we will have the following:   VARIETY OF STALLS, including Keith's Hostas and second hand books PORK AND STUFFING BATCHES TEA, COFFEE AND CAKE MEMBERSHIP Information BAR from 12.00 to 16.00 BOX OFFICE open to book tickets for forthcoming productions ENTERTAINMENT   10.30 - 11.00 : _Alan Porter,_ sings   11.30 - 12.30 : _Elevate Theatre,_ perform a number of songs from their forthcoming production of 'Musical Mash-up'   12.30 - 13.00 : _Earlsdon Morris,_ perform   13.15 - 13.45 : _Bee-sides_, neo-soul/jazz/R'n'B inspired duo   14.00 - 14.30 : _Eoten_, modern folk   14.45 - 15.15 : _The Moloney Quartet_, jazz   15.30 - 16.00 : _Shanghai Hostage_, funk/rock/folk   16.00 - 16.30 : _Benjamin Penrose_, singer-songwriter

Play Selection Committee

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Register from 7.30 - quiz starts at 8 (approx)  Rich Warren is quiz master once more - join us to test your brain and nerve in the return of our popular quiz night.  THIS TIME IN THE BAR ON A WEDNESDAY NIGHT!

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Join us for a fun packed night of everything 1980's!  Drinks, nibbles and music will all be from this golden era of class and awesomeness.   Just joking.  But we loved it anyway.   Dress up in your finest shell suits, shoulder pads and hairspray to the MAX.  Bring your finest singing voices (or earplugs) as there will be karaoke.  No-one puts the 1980's in the corner..... Fun starts at 8.30! 

  • WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY AWARD-WINNING ARTIST LUCY ROSLYN AND DIRECTED BY JMK AWARD WINNER JOSH ROCHE • INSPIRED BY VIRGINIA WOOLF’S AVANT-GARDE NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME "I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another." Following a run at VAULT Festival, we are pleased to once again welcome back BoonDog Theatre in association with Jessie Anand Productions for two special preview performances of Lucy Roslyn’s new play Orlando ahead of its run at the  Pleasance Courtyard for Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Orlando is the story of a person tired of the identitarian obsessions of 2019, tired of being boxed in and misunderstood, and tired of life itself. Roslyn’s character reflects on the contemporary world through the lens of a 90-year-old text that dealt with issues of identity politics and gender fluidity via one fantastical character. In 1928 Virginia Woolf imagined her own freedom in the pages of a novel. Heartbroken by her affair with Vita Sackville-West, Woolf created a young boy born in Elizabethan England, who lives and loves, writes and rewrites through four hundred years, ending her days as a woman in the twentieth century. Woolf's novel strains at the boundaries of identity: are we any one thing? Or are our selves 'stacked like dinner plates', one on top of the other? Lucy Roslyn’s play combines the themes of sexuality and identity with a universal story about heartbreak, creating an expansive piece that transports the audience through time and place, laughter and tears. Written and performed by Lucy Roslyn (The State vs John Hayes, Showmanship, Goody) and directed by Josh Roche, winner of the JMK Award 2017 (My Name is Rachel Corrie, Plastic, This Must Be The Place, Radio), Orlando reunites the creative team behind Kenneth Emson's Plastic at the Old Red Lion (designer Sophie Thomas, lighting designer Peter Small and sound designer Kieran Lucas). 

ORLANDO • WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY AWARD-WINNING ARTIST LUCY ROSLYN AND DIRECTED BY JMK AWARD WINNER JOSH ROCHE • INSPIRED BY VIRGINIA WOOLF’S AVANT-GARDE NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME "I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another." Following a run at VAULT Festival, we are pleased to once again welcome back BoonDog Theatre in association with Jessie Anand Productions for two special preview performances of Lucy Roslyn’s new play Orlando ahead of its run at the  Pleasance Courtyard for Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Orlando is the story of a person tired of the identitarian obsessions of 2019, tired of being boxed in and misunderstood, and tired of life itself. Roslyn’s character reflects on the contemporary world through the lens of a 90-year-old text that dealt with issues of identity politics and gender fluidity via one fantastical character. In 1928 Virginia Woolf imagined her own freedom in the pages of a novel. Heartbroken by her affair with Vita Sackville-West, Woolf created a young boy born in Elizabethan England, who lives and loves, writes and rewrites through four hundred years, ending her days as a woman in the twentieth century. Woolf's novel strains at the boundaries of identity: are we any one thing? Or are our selves 'stacked like dinner plates', one on top of the other? Lucy Roslyn’s play combines the themes of sexuality and identity with a universal story about heartbreak, creating an expansive piece that transports the audience through time and place, laughter and tears. Written and performed by Lucy Roslyn (The State vs John Hayes, Showmanship, Goody) and directed by Josh Roche, winner of the JMK Award 2017 (My Name is Rachel Corrie, Plastic, This Must Be The Place, Radio), Orlando reunites the creative team behind Kenneth Emson's Plastic at the Old Red Lion (designer Sophie Thomas, lighting designer Peter Small and sound designer Kieran Lucas). 

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Join us for games galore - from darts to snakes and ladders!  Play at your own leisure.    Fun starts at 8.30. 

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

The theatre will be holding a table top sale, as part of the Sena street sale on [x-apple-data-detectors://1]7TH SEPTEMBER 2019 FROM 11A.M. – 2:00P.M [x-apple-data-detectors://1], in order to raise monies towards the theatre's development fund. We are asking for items to be donated for the table sale, and all monies raised will go to the development fund for the theatre. The items being sought as donations are: Good quality toys Good quality household goods (not electrical) Good quality crockery/glassware Produce : jams, pickles etc Plants Gardening equipment Camping equipment PLEASE NOTE – WE ARE NOT ABLE TO ACCEPT DONATIONS OF BOOKS OR CLOTHING. Do you have any of the above items that you would be willing to donate to the theatre table sale? If so, please bring them to the theatre on the day, or contact Judy Sharpe on fundraising@criteriontheatre.co.uk We are also looking for additional cakes for the theatre coffee morning, which will be held on the same day – can you help by proving a cake please? Please note that any items donated, which remain unsold at the end of the sale will be either donated to charity shops or skipped. Thank you in anticipation of your support Judy Sharpe

Award-winning film, songs and tales of mining life. An evening of song, laughter and some tears. It’s a celebration of the legacy of the coal mining industry, with emphasis on the community spirit forged then and struggling determinedly to survive now. Central to the evening is a showing of the multi-award winning film Black Snow (duration 25 min) dealing with legacy of The Oaks explosion (Wednesday 12 December 1866) which killed 361 miners and rescuers at the Oaks Colliery, Barnsley when explosions caused by firedamp ripped through the workings. It is the worst mining accident ever in England and the second worst in the United Kingdom, after the Senghenydd colliery disaster in Wales. In the 19th century it was the worst in the world. But for 150 years it was almost forgotten. The film looks at how a former mining community absorbs that heritage into their lives today. The writer and director, Professor Stephen Linstead of the University of York, will respond to questions, offer some additional historical insights and some (often hilarious) backstories about the making of the film and its meaning for him; and how it has informed his own ideas of community, change and celebration. The evening will be book-ended by songs, poetry and stories of mining life across the old mining regions of Britain from Steve and Radio 2 Folk Award Nominee Jed Grimes. While the subject matter is serious, the natural northern wit of the presenters, and the (sometimes mordant) humour contained in the movie, contemporary accounts and songs make for an entertaining, thought-provoking and ultimately uplifting evening. JED GRIMES Jed Grimes http://jedgrimesmusic.co.uk/  “Brings folk music into the 21st century”. (BBC Radio 2 Folk). Jed was nominated (Best Traditional song Arrangement) at The 2004 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. His last two solo CDs, ‘Heart & Hand’, and ‘North Face’, have been rapturously received by the roots music press, and widely broadcast on BBC Radio 2 and local stations. Jed continues to tour festivals, arts centres and folk clubs across the UK, where his musical skills and ‘Geordie insouciance’ entertain audiences great and small. "Couple a timbrous voice that has a richness and depth, which you love almost from the first note, to the warmth of his playing - add in a sprinkle of sensitive thoughtful and restrained arrangements … sheer inventiveness." http://fatea-records.co.uk/ STEVE LINSTEAD began his performing career in 1967 with a brief appearance on Rediffusion TV’s Disney Wonderland Junior Talent Contest which catapulted him to mediocrity. He subsequently performed solo and with bands including Cut-throat Jake, Silk Roots and ‘Barnsley’s First Folk Rock band’, Oscar The Frog for whom he wrote the legendary ‘Hit Me With Your Morris Stick’ (although everyone thinks it was Ian McMillan). More seriously, he is a widely published, cited and award-winning academic, currently Professor of Management Humanities at the University of York, with an international reputation for original and inspirational keynotes. He modestly opines that the first sentence of the following quote could apply to either of his careers. “Highly regarded … surprisingly neglected.. had far more energy than most of the competition of the time. Despite definite power pop overtones, they deserve consideration for adapting the Ian Dury hit.” AllMusic.com REVIEW COMMENTS “Informative, provocative...and entertaining - a must-see show indeed!” Edinburgh Festival Fringe “Well researched...Great narrative and an excellent musical experience as well. Thoroughly enjoyable and educational evening!” Ken Hastie, audience member at North Shields show. “Informative and poignant.” Dan Jarvis MBE, MP

Please come down for an informal chat to our new members team and find out how you can be part of Earlsdon's Criterion Theatre.  There are various ways you can volunteer, from set design to prompting, selling tickets to working on our lighting team, to name but a few.  We would love to meet you.  Please contact Deb, Jan or Paul on Welcome@criteriontheatre.co.uk 

If you have ever wondered about what 'doing' props might involve, Erica and I will be putting on a small exhibition and talking about the props department and what we do. We have had a lot of fun over the last eleven years or so, and I think I can say that both of us have discovered abilities that we didn't know we possessed. I doubt if Erica had done much in the way of creating severed heads before she joined the team and there isn't much call for making fake blood in librarianship! We didn't know what we could achieve until we tried, and would love to encourage others to join us and discover their own hidden talents. If the idea of getting covered in glue doesn't appeal to you then your skill may lie in sourcing things that we need, which is invaluable. The evening coincides with a new members' evening, so come along and help to make them feel extra welcome. Hope to see you then, Sally.

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Please volunteer for a day of essential maintenance and cleaning jobs for the theatre.  Just turn up and lend a hand for as long as you can - there will be a list of jobs to be done as you arrive.  Anything you can do will be most appreciated.    The Criterion Board 

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Bring the kids, enjoy a sparkler or two in the car park, enjoy a few games and crafts in the bar. There will be hot dogs and cake too! See you there! 

Join us for a coffee/tea and cake, and a browse through the second hand books.

Join us as we joyfully celebrate the beginning of the Christmas season by singing virtually every carol and Christmas song ever written. This is truly a special night, so please wear your Christmas jumpers, bring a raffle prize and your best singing voices. Mince Pies and Mulled Wine will be available. There may also be a visit from a very special person! There is no admission fee for this event.