Dance your way into July, before letting the laughs loose and stepping into an extinct world with the dino giants. Pulse’s Sammy Jones has the details…

Two Strictly stars who have led their celebs to victory have paired up to bring you Red Hot and Ready (July 2, Derngate) and dream team Dianne Buswell and Vito Coppola have an added ace in their pack for this show – it has been created by world-renowned choreographer Jason Gilkison.

Dianne and Vito will be joined by a cast of Burn the Floor dancers from around the world and collectively, that’s exactly what they will be doing in the ‘fampton.

Tony Blackburn’s Sounds of The 60s Live sessions might not be new, but they are hugely popular – hence this return (July 9, Derngate) which will fill your ears from the decade that flower power discovered. Tony’s Radio 2 show attracts more than a million people a week, all keen to share in his stories about the stars from the seminal decade for music.

Cirque: The Greatest Show – Reimagined (July 10) promises to deliver West End showstoppers and awe-inspiring circus acts, making for ‘a vibrant, kaleidoscopic journey bursting with colour, energy, and excitement.’

We adore Matthew Bourne’s work, and his groundbreaking Swan Lake is a calendar treat for so many of us (we’re not long back from another theatre trip to soak in its magnificence), but his rich body of ballet brilliance includes so much more (Edward Scissorhands and Play Without Words being personal faves), and it’s super exciting to see The Midnight Bell coming to town for the first time (July 15-19, Derngate).

Inspired by the work of English novelist Patrick Hamilton, this time around Bourne will take you back to London in the 1930s, where ordinary people emerge from cheap boarding houses nightly to pour out their passions, hopes and dreams in the pubs and fog-bound streets of Soho and Fitzrovia.

The Midnight Bell had its World Premiere back in 2021, picking up four nominations at the following years’ National Dance Awards. Take a seat for a show which challenges and reveals ‘the darker reaches of the human heart.’
In Bourne’s delivery you most certainly can trust.

The Strictly tours feed many a theatre throughout summertime, and there’s another for you (July 21, Derngate) with Anton & Giovanni: Together Again.

You goin’? You askin’? Expect a lot of laughs, song and dance and you’ll emerge satisfied after the curtain falls.
Dinosaur World Live (July 22-24, Derngate) will capture young minds with Triceratops, Giraffatitan, Microraptor and Segnosaurus among those coming to roar for you – and flesh-eating fave, Tyrannosaurus Rex too, of course.

Post show, you can take your little explorers to meet and greet the stars. It’s not every day you get the offer of befriending a dinosaur, is it?
Laughter is the best medicine, and The Old Savoy has the best line-up ready to put it before you on July 11.

This session of the Anglia Comedy Allstars will see Tom Davis, Tom Rosenthal, Lloyd Griffith and Ria Lina charged with cheering moods.
You’ll know Tom (Davis) from shows including King Gary and Live at the Apollo, or maybe for his work with Romesh Ranganathan, while Lloyd has been a part of the Ted Lasso success, Not Going Out and It’s A Sin (and that’s just a taster from his cluttered CV). Ria, meanwhile, has stepped up with quick wit on TV staples including Live at The Apollo and Have I Got News For You.

Mr Rosenthal played his part in Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner, but we love him most for his portrayal of Marcus in Plebs, the sitcom set in ancient Rome.

It’s a go-to whenever a pick-me-up is needed in these parts.

Shakespeare’s The Tempest (July 16) also gets an airing at the venue this month, with The Nene Valley Partnership and Silhouette Youth Theatre in charge of the Bard’s work.