23 September – 30 September
Classical music and theatre dominate as Birmingham settles into autumn programming
76 events · 20 venues · AI-synthesised from Looge listings
This week Birmingham's cultural calendar tilts decisively toward the familiar. Theatre counts highest with 26 events, many of them established repertoire—Swan Lake opens the week at Birmingham Hippodrome and Crescent Theatre, while Twelve Angry Men returns to Birmingham Rep with its record-breaking West End pedigree. Music venues hum with classical machinery: the CBSO hosts the Evgeny Svetlanov Conducting Competition on Wednesday, with multiple Elgar Enigma Variations performances scattered across the week, and chamber recitals fill the gaps at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and university concert halls.
Yet there's discovery threaded through the mainstream. Mockingbird Cinema clusters experimental and contemporary work—Wolf Cat Fever's deranged rockabilly absurdism, Hong-jin Na's mysterious South Korean thriller Hope, and Hong Khaou's intimate grief-drama Lilting all screen this week. The Gesualdo Six appears twice (at University of Birmingham and Barber Institute) with trumpet and vocal music titled Radiant Dawn, a programme exploring light through sound. Two exhibitions open or continue their runs: Balraj Khanna's retrospective at Ikon Gallery (his first major survey, bringing together 40 paintings across six decades) and Laisul Hoque's photographic work on driving in Birmingham at Grand Union. Tours and talks cluster too—Discovery Tours at Blakesley Hall, the Astonishingly Aston Friday Tour, and Brum Radicals, a new networking event for Birmingham's creative community rooted in collaborative making.
Threads this week
Classical machinery in motion
The CBSO and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire anchor a week of chamber music, symphonic work, and formal recitals. The Evgeny Svetlanov Conducting Competition brings prestige to Symphony Hall, while multiple performances of Elgar's Enigma Variations—both full orchestral and lunchtime-length versions—suggest a city settling into autumn's canonical pleasures. Walton's Façade and Britten's Simple Symphony round out the repertoire.
Experimental cinema and contemporary voice
Mockingbird Cinema curates a leaner, more conceptual programme this week: Hong Khaou's Lilting explores grief between a mother and her late son's lover across language barriers, while Na Hong-jin's Hope investigates something strange and threatening in a remote South Korean village. Josh Collins's Wolf Cat Fever follows a rockabilly musician and a leather-clad figure through derangement and desire. These sit alongside archival documentary work (Wattstax, a 1973 concert film capturing Afro-American culture post-Watts).
Painting and photography across decades
Two major visual surveys open or continue this week. Balraj Khanna: Lines of Flight at Ikon Gallery assembles more than 40 paintings by the British-Indian artist across six decades—a comprehensive retrospective of a figure who died last year. Laisul Hoque's photography at Grand Union captures the peculiar intimacy of learning to drive in Birmingham, ongoing until early October. Both propose visual history as a form of witness.
Theatre's repertoire and new voices
Swan Lake dominates early week, with Peter Wright's beloved 1987 choreography at both Hippodrome and Royal Ballet venues. But the week also welcomes the First Cantonese Biblical Musical (The Only King at The Old Rep), Rifco Theatre's Surinderella remake, and Send In the Clowns: Queeny Todd at Birmingham Rep—a chaotic, riotous comedy. Clare Balding visits Crescent Theatre for memoir and conversation, while Wilde's A Woman of No Importance rounds out the literary canon.
