Sarah Bird

Elf: The Musical

West End star Ben Forster takes the role Will Ferrell made famous on the silver screen in this toe-tapping stage adaptation of the 2003 festive comedy. Staged at the Lowry in Salford, this family-friendly musical tells the story of Buddy, a young orphan child who crawls into Father Christmas's bag of gifts one year, and is accidentally whisked away to the North Pole, where the nonplussed elves raise him as one of their own. Years later, once Buddy has grown to adulthood, he returns to New York City to find his birth father and help the people of the Big Apple rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. Also starring Liz McClarnon, Louis Emerick, Joe McGann and Jessica Martin.

Stormbreaker

Alex Rider thinks he is a normal school boy, until his uncle is killed. He discovers that his uncle was actually spy on a mission, when he was killed. Alex is recruited by Alan Blunt to continue the mission. He is sent to Cornwall to investigate a new computer system, which Darrius Sayle has created. He plans to give the new computer systems to every school in the country, but Mr. Blunt has other ideas and Alex must find out what it is.

The Best Man

After painter Michael 'Mike' Sheldrake's failed suicide attempt, house-mate and life-long best friend Peter Tremaine, an antiques shop owner, reminisces their common past, like Mike does in therapy. It started at the beach, when scrubby, scared Mikey became the dependent protégé of forceful Pete, both doted by Pete's dad, a wealthy lawyer. Afterwards Mike moves out to marry Kate. Pete accepts to be best man, but overdoes that, 'arranging' to get stuck in the honeymoon hotel he paid for. Drama from their boarding school childhood intertwines with tragedy for the mates, Kate and vindictive former police detective Miller.

Room to Rent

Ali is a young Egyptian screenwriter determined to succeed in London, where he has been a student. He loves the artistic and political freedom, the colours, the music, the individualism. But he has little money, his student visa is about to expire and he has been thrown out of his lodgings. And so Ali moves in with a succession of eccentric and colourful London flatmates: Mark, a photographer with a very individual style, Linda, a young, blonde, very sexy model and Marilyn Monroe impersonator, and Miss Stevenson who is convinced that Ali is the reincarnation of her long dead Egyptian lover.

Second Sight: Kingdom of the Blind

While hiding his own rapidly deteriorating eyesight, a detective investigates the murder of a black youth leader.

Madame Bovary

A young woman in her late teens, a reader of novels and with high hopes of romance and passion, marries a widowed country doctor. Although he dotes on her, she is soon bored and discontent. First, she gives her imagination to a law student in town, and next she takes a lover. When he refuses to run away with her, she takes up again with the law clerk. Her spending on dresses and furnishings mounts; these debts and her ill-advised professional counsel to her husband bring his ruin.

Cinderella

Zezolla and her family live mid 20th century, where fashion is practically everything. As her father is won over by a selfish woman named Claudette, Cinderella must keep her new step-mother from murdering the only family she has left. Add in an anti-social mermaid literally living in a cave, a bored prince with an ear for rock n' roll, and the glamour of the 1950's and one'll find that this story can't grow old.

Tower of the First Born

Despite her friends' warnings, a woman travels to the Sahara, determined to find her missing archaeologist father and the magical tower he was searching for. Aided by a mysterious prince, she battles outlaws and the desert's harsh conditions.

Hostile Waters

Based on true events, an American submarine collides into a Soviet sub of the coast of America and an ensuing standoff occurs that could lead to total annihilation.

Wilde

The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realisation of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas.

Poldark

The Cornish military captain, now a member of Parliament, is drawn into the war with France while his son falls in with smugglers. Historical drama, starring John Bowe and Mel Martin, and featuring a young Ioan Gruffudd in one of his earliest roles.

Sister My Sister

A true story of shocking violence catapults a picturesque little town into history. The close sibling relationship between the two maids takes on a new dimension as their overbearing employer discovers a sexual fever between the two sisters.