Photo: Hotdogs by Matt Cattell

A few festive bits and bobs happening around Birmingham…

The Frankfurt Christmas Market closes on Friday 23 December, as does the Festive Pop Up Bazaar on New Street.

It’s the BrumNotes/This Is Tmrw Christmas Party at The Victoria tonight. Click the link or ogle the poster below (sidenote: are Lewes Herriot‘s gig posters the best around town at the moment? Answers on a postcard).

Birmingham Hippodrome have Cinderella on until the end of January and has already picked up some really good reviews from the Birmingham Mail and The Stage. I went along to the press night last night (disclosure: that means they gave me free tickets) and liked the lovely horsey best.

In other theatre-based offerings:

• The Rep have The Snowman at the ICC and Sleeping Beauty at the Crescent Theatre.
• Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter are doing A Christmas Carol
• The MAC have The Lost Happy Endings

In fact, Area Guide’s December issue has a Christmas theatre round-up from page 26 onwards. Ah, and Visit Birmingham have a Christmas round-up too.

Film-wise, Kino 10 are showing The Nightmare Before Christmas plus some short films at St Columba Church on Friday 23 Dec and The Electric have a smattering of festive films too.

Town Hall & Symphony Hall have a bundle of events going on:

• Polar (this afternoon)
• The CBSO’s Great Big Choral Christmas
• Christmas Eve Classics
• Boxing Day Gala

Meanwhile, down in that London, Birmingham Royal Ballet are seeing out the year performing The Nutcracker at the O2, which sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

There’s loads of other stuff too, obviously. If you’ve got any other good suggestions then bung them in the comments.

To be honest, I’d be surprised if anyone is reading this (and to be even more honest, I wrote this a few days back anyway) but, in case it’s timely, here are a few things on TV that you might be interested in today:

• Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Cinderella, BBC2 at 3pm
• Best of European Opera 2010 (ft Birmingham Opera Company’s Othello), BBC4 at 7pm

Screen WM have done a round-up of the festive stuff they’ve been involved in, including The Brothers McLeod’s The Moon Bird (Christmas Day, 12.40am on Channel 4 – oh, bit late for that, sorry), the new series of Upstairs Downstairs (Boxing Day, 9pm on BBC 1), Toast (30 December, 9pm on BBC 1) and, later on in January, the return of Hustle.

If you’ve got some vouchers burning a hole in your pocket then Soulboy and Nativity are out on DVD.

On the radio side of things, Robin Valk’s Handsworth Evolution will be played on 30 December on BBC WM.

Stuart Griffiths, Chief Executive at Birmingham Hippodrome, has blogged revealing what we can expect from their new season of dance.

As the climax of Birmingham Royal Ballet‘s 20th Anniversary celebrations, David Bintley’s brand new production of the classic fairytale, Cinderella, has been presented as a gift to the city. You can catch it from 24 Nov – 12 Dec (and follow the Creating Cinderella blog in the meantime), but before then there’s plenty to keep you entertained. A few of the highlights include:

• Birmingham Royal Ballet: Points of View 22 – 25 Sept
• Birmingham Royal Ballet: Romeo & Juliet 28 Sept – 2 Oct
• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Revelations 5 & 6 Oct
• Fresh from the West End is Blaze – The Streetdance Sensation 7 – 9 Oct

Matthew Bourne will be bringing his latest production north of London for the first time, plus the Welsh National Opera are offering a selection of new operas and revivals.

On the musical front, several favorites will be back by popular demand, with new productions of including Hairspray and Chess. Bringing 2010 to a close, Joan Collins tops the bill at this years pantomime, along with Julian Clary, Nigel Havers, Keith Harris and Orville, and Jeffrey Holland in a spectacular production of Dick Whittington.

For full listings take a look at the Hippodrome’s website along with Stuart’s full blog post.

Prices have been frozen for this year, get in quick, etc and so on.