Dynamic Pricing
ARC’s policy is to set ticket prices based on demand, like budget airlines, which means we set a price when the event goes on sale and then sometimes put the price up or down depending on how the show is selling. Usually, the price will increase as we get closer to the event, so it is advantageous to book in advance, although sometimes we will put special offers on and reduce the price. Our website will always show the current ticket price.
ARC’s theatre and dance performances are priced on a Pay What You Decide basis, which means you don’t have to pay until after you have seen a show!
We want to encourage more people to come and see shows at ARC, more often. Pay What You Decide not only allows you to pay what you can afford, rather than a fixed ticket price, but also removes the financial risk of buying a ticket for a show in advance without knowing whether you are going to enjoy it or not.
Tickets are available to book in advance as usual, but there is no obligation for you to pay until after you have seen the show. You can then decide on a price which you think is suitable based on your experience, which means if you haven’t enjoyed it at all, you don’t have to pay anything.
All money collected will help ARC pay the artists who have performed, and we therefore hope you will give generously.
Please ensure you have arrived and collected your tickets 15 minutes before the show starts in order to secure your seats. At the end of the show, you can decide what to pay, either by cash on the door or by card at the Box Office.
General Prices: £25 + £0.10 booking fee
Seating: Mixed
When looking for the perfect presentation of the Motown sound and style, few fit the bill as well as Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. It was 1963 when they moved from being Marvin Gaye’s original backup singers (“Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” “Pride & Joy,” “Hitch Hike”) to stars in their own right with the trifecta of “Come and Get These Memories,” “Heat Wave,” and “Quicksand.” Over the next decade, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas would be a consistent presence on the music charts, as well as on television and top venues across the US and abroad.
With the unmistakable voice that helped define “the sound of young America,” Reeves reigns as one of music’s most beloved and acclaimed female singers. As one reviewer recently exclaimed, “Martha Reeves is the ultimate Motown diva with soul flowing from the tips of her toes to the last hair on her head. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.” Reeves and her Vandellas remain in high demand, heating up clubs, casinos, concert stages, colleges and music festivals across the globe.
Their hits are a thing of legend: In addition to the aforementioned, they include the gospel-tinged “Nowhere to Run,” the classic soul favorite “My Baby Loves Me,” the pop anthem “Jimmy Mack,” and the signature, “Dancing In The Street.” While best known for up-tempo, hard driving tunes, Reeves’ shows are often highlighted by jazzy renderings of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”, her driving original blues “Watch Your Back” (from her self-produced CD “Home to You”), the soulful, country-influenced “A Love Like Yours (Don’t Come Knocking Every Day),” and a new soul-gospel rocker, “Holy Highway.”
Martha’s story is a familiar one to legions of fans.
Soon after graduating from high school, she performed in clubs as “Martha Lavaille.” One night, Motown A&R director Mickey Stevenson heard her and invited her to audition for the then-fledgling label. The highly-motivated Reeves arrived the next morning. Upon learning that auditions had to be scheduled, she made herself valuable by answering phones and taking messages. When people say she started at Motown as a secretary, Reeves corrects them, laughing, “I was never a secretary. I was a singer who could keep secrets and type.”
Reeves soon become an invaluable administrator, interacting with musicians and performers, scheduling sessions, and making sure that business was taken care of. And she waited her turn to sing. One day, when Mary Wells was unavailable for a session, Martha stepped up to the mic, got notice and a contract. She left the A/R department to become one of Motown’s most enduring and beloved stars.
As classics never fade, new and diverse audiences are constantly being introduced to the Martha Reeves songbook.
She has counted talents as diverse as James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Dusty Springfield and Beverly Sills among her singing partners. Robin Williams spun “Nowhere to Run” in Good Morning, Vietnam. Her version of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night” was featured on the Thelma and Louise movie soundtrack. The boys of The Boys In the Band and Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2 partied to “Heat Wave.” Everyone from Mick Jagger and David Bowie, the Mamas and the Papas, the Who and the Grateful Dead have gone “Dancing In the Street.” Singers such as Adele, the late Amy Winehouse, Florence Welch and Jennifer Hudson sing her praises.
Moving beyond the confines of the concert stage, Reeves starred in a US tour of the Tony-winning “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” and has performed in road shows of “The Jackie Wilson Story” and “Good Black Don’t Crack.” She co-starred for three seasons in the UK stage review “Dancing in the Street,” alongside peers like the late Edwin Starr, Mary Wilson, and Freda Payne. Following Starr’s death in 2003, Reeves held the spotlight alone. That same year, she made her opera debut singing with the Motor City Lyric Opera.