BLACKEYED Theatre brings its acclaimed production of John Godber’s comedy Teechers to The Haymarket on Tuesday, 20 March.

The play about life at a struggling ‘sink school’ for Mr Nixon, an unsuspecting new drama teacher, features breathtaking ensemble performance and a bang-up-to-date soundtrack.

The performance brings to life an array of disgruntled teachers, unruly students and obstructive caretakers, through the eyes of Salty, Gail and Hobby; three Year 11 students about to leave school for good.

Will Mr Nixon abandon his students for a green and pleasant Grammar school? Who puts the bounce in Miss Prime, the PE teacher? Will Mrs Parry ever find her Koko? And why does everyone smell of spring onions?

Although written in 1984, director Adrian McDougall has brought the production very much up-to-date in a time defined by social media, cheap celebrity and the uncertainty of ‘Brexit’.

He says: “I can promise audiences a brilliant evening’s entertainment, lots of laughs as well as one or two genuinely touching moments”.

Crammed full of unforgettable characters, political left-hooks and razor-sharp comedy, Teechers is more relevant today than ever, painting a very funny – and at times poignant – picture of school life

The critically-acclaimed Pantaloons invade The Haymarket on Friday, 23 March with a funny yet faithful adaptation of H.G. Wells’ science fiction masterpiece, The War of the Worlds.

A multi-talented cast of four use musical instruments, puppetry and enthusiasm to recreate deadly heat-rays, giant fighting-machines, squidgy tentacled Martians and interplanetary warfare on an epic scale.

The Pantaloons have been getting a name for themselves with their charming and anarchic adaptations of popular literary works and this new production of The War of the Worlds is funny, frantic and fast-paced.

Adapter and co-artistic director of the company, Mark Hayward, explains that The Pantaloons want the show to be moving as well as amusing.

“This new adaptation is very faithful to the text,” he said, “which essentially tells the story of one man’s struggle to survive against impossible odds, driven by the hope of being reunited with his wife.

“The trick to not undermining the heart of a book, is to avoid sending up the text itself and instead focus on lampooning theatrical conventions. The joke should be about how hard it is to stage a full-blown alien invasion; then we can still tell a tale with pathos and all of H.G. Wells’ insight.

“The show will feature plenty of humour too, with nods to other classic works of science fiction, ingenious cost-saving ‘special’ effects, and plenty to say about terrestrial life in modern Britain.

“After all,” says Hayward, “this is a book in which the initial response from Londoners to the alien invasion is that really the authorities should have done more to keep the trains running on time!”

For more information or for tickets, visit anvilarts.org.uk or call the Anvil Arts box office on 01256 844244.