It’s taken me a while to mention this one although it’s been on my radar for ages.

Birmingham Opera Company are doing Othello on 7 dates between 5-19 December. It’s going to be amazing and epic because, by and large, amazing and epic are what Birmingham Opera Company do.

Like last year’s King Idomeneo, this will be a walkabout performance in a massive industrial building – specifically Argyle Works on Great Barr Street. However, BOC manager Jean Nicholson has suggested that the days of the company putting on shows in this way may be limited.

The performance will incorporate professional opera singers, an amateur chorus (to include Pete Ashton, who’s occasionally seen around these parts and who has been taking photos during rehearsals, including the one below), a new children’s chorus and a dance company of 200 young people as part of the People Dancing programme (read about Smash Bro’z involvement in that).

Here are some bonus bulletpoints:

• In this production, Ronald Samm will be the first black man to play Othello for a professional opera company in the UK
• Pete Ashton’s done a good analysis of the poster and what lies behind it
• Shoes may not be worn in the performance space – socks will be available
• The Saturday shows (5, 12 and 19 Dec) have already sold out
• You really should buy yourself a ticket. Worst case scenario – you won’t know what you missed

An outdoor dance spectacular that’s part of Birmingham Town Hall‘s 175th birthday celebrations. They’re hoping for up to have had up to 12,000 people take part. It’s being performed on Friday 9 October at 8pm and Saturday 10 October at 3pm and 8pm – and you can learn the steps half an hour before each performance.

It’s part of the People Dancing programme and there’s plenty more info on westmidlandsdance.com and the Bollywood Steps website.

Birmingham Poet Laureate Inaugral Reading

Tonight, at the Library Theatre, our new poet laureate, announced yesterday as Adrian Johnson (ACE West Mids Literature Officer), will be performing for the first time in his official capacity.

Info on the Birmingham Book Festival website.

Goings on in Digbeth

Nicky Getgood, on Digbeth is Good, has linked to a fair amount of interesting stuff happening:

• Eastside Studio are holding an Open Studio on Saturday afternoon from midday to 5pm to ‘celebrate the completion of carving the ‘Rugby Writers’ commission’
• Also on Saturday, VIVID are taking part in The Big Draw with a variety of artists getting visitors to interact with their work

UPDATE – Oops, cheers to Nicky Getgood for pointing out the next one is on Sunday 18 October:

• On Sunday Nikki Pugh is doing a GPS-assisted walk around “the perimeter of the regeneration area taking great care to stop, investigate, prod, document, tell stories about and explore things along the way”

Also, see the comments for more free stuff this weekend.