Britain’s only theatre in a pub is presenting an everyday tale of transgender German rock singers.
The Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham city centre will be presenting Nigel Francis Productions’ tale of Hedwig and the Angry Inch from 12th-14th September.
Internationally ignored song stylist Hedwig Robinson, a fourth-wall smashing, East German Rock ‘n’ Roll goddess tells her story in the form of a rock gig/stand-up routine backed by the hard-rocking band “The Angry Inch”. Having grown up on the East side of the Berlin wall during the cold war, Hedwig, then a boy named Hansel, meets Luther, an American GI, who promises to take the young man back to the United States on the condition that he switch his gender.
After the bungled operation, Luther abandons newly-named Hedwig in a Kansas trailer park where she turns to music and meets geeky Tommy Speck, whom she takes under her wing and soon falls for. Tommy steals her songs, achieves rock star fame and Hedwig is once again cast aside.
In what David Bowie has described as “The most wholly rounded piece of ROCK theatre I have seen in years” and the New York Times simply called “Sensational” Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a roller-coaster ride – funny, touching and ultimately inspiring to anyone who has felt life gave them an inch, when they deserved a mile.