News – Page 10 – The Theatre Playbook

Richard E Grant books second night at Richmond

Richard E Grant has confirmed a second night at Richmond Theatre with his show An Evening with Richard E Grant.

Since his breakout role in cult classic film Withnail and I in 1987, Grant has starred in series such as Doctor Who, Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones, and films including Star Wars, Spice World and his Oscar-nominated turn in 2018’s Can You Ever Forgive Me?

On stage, he will now tell stories from his life, entwining tales from his extraordinary time in showbiz with uplifting reflections on love and loss, to celebrate the publication of his new book, A Pocketful of Happiness.

Live on stage, Richard will consider the inspiration behind the book – how, when his beloved wife Joan died in 2021 after almost 40 years together, she set him a challenge: to find a pocketful of happiness in every day. He found the instruction to be profoundly powerful, and this new book, drawing on both contemporary stories and recollections of his remarkable life and glittering career, is Richard’s way of honouring that challenge.

An Evening with Richard E Grant will be staged at Richmond Theatre on May 30-31.

Sadlers Wells accepts Seeta Patel’s Rite of Spring

A cast of 10 dancers will take to the stage at Sadlers Wells to perform a fresh interpretation of The Rite of Spring, from award-winning choreography and dancer Seeta Patel.

Using the classical South Indian dance form of bharatanatyam, this ensemble piece is accompanied by Stravinsky’s score performed live by the full Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, under its Chief Conductor, Kirill Karabits.

Unusually for The Rite of Spring, this version subverts tradition by choosing a male as The Chosen One, elevating him to a deity to whom all sacrifice themselves. This production is an expanded, full version of Patel’s acclaimed 2019 piece for five dancers.

Patel opens the evening with a solo performance accompanied by South Indian musicians. Showcasing bharatanatyam as it is often presented in a solo format, this takes the audience on the journey of Mother Earth from birth to destruction, until Her deliverance through The Rite of Spring.

The Rite of Spring will run at Sadlers Wells on March 13-14.

Cast confirmed for Richmond’s Blood Brothers run

Niki Colwell Evans and Sean Jones have been confirmed in the lead roles of Blood Brothers, when it returns to Richmond Theatre this month.

They will continue in the roles of Mrs Johnstone and Mickey Johnstone, respectively, in Bill Kenwright’s legendary production of the musical.

The full cast for the 2023 tour includes Richard Munday (Narrator), Joe Sleight (Eddie), Paula Tappenden (Mrs Lyons), Olivia Sloyan (Linda), Timothy Lucas (Sammy), Tim Churchill (Mr Lyons), Nick Wilkes (Policeman/Teacher), Gemma Brodrick (Donna Marie/Miss Jones), Connor Bannister (Perkins), Josh Capper (Neighbour), Amy Murphy (Brenda) and Jacob Yolland (Bus Conductor).

Written playwright Willy Russell, Kenwright’s production passed the 10,000 performance mark in London’s West End, one of only three musicals ever to achieve that milestone.

Blood Brothers tells the captivating and moving tale of twins separated at birth, who grow up on the opposite sides of the tracks, only to meet again with tragic consequences.

When Mrs Johnstone, a young mother, is deserted by her husband and left to her own devices to provide for seven hungry children, she takes a job as a housekeeper in order to make ends meet. It is not long before her brittle world crashes around her when she discovers herself to be pregnant yet again – this time with twins! In a moment of weakness and desperation, she enters a secret pact with her employer which leads inexorably to the show’s shattering climax.

Evans first rose to fame in 2007 when she reached the semi-final of season four of The X Factor UK mentored by Louis Walsh. She played Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers at the Phoenix Theatre between 2008-2009 and in 2010. She has also appeared in Kinky Boots as Trish (UK Tour 2018/21) and as Paulette in the musical adaptation of Legally Blonde (UK Tour 2012).

Jones’ stage credits include Macbeth (UK Tour and Singapore) and Jacqueline’s Wilson’s world premiere of Wave Me Goodbye (Theatr Clwyd).

Blood Brothers will run at Richmond Theatre from February 21-25, 2023.

Carroll’s The Misandrist plays to the Arcola

The Arcola Theatre will host the debut run of Lisa Carroll’s The Misandrist.

Prickly freelancer Rachel is at the beginning of an existential crisis. It’s 2018, Brexit looms large yet never “gets done”. Rachel prays for a second referendum that will never come. The economy continues its slow decline, jobs are being squeezed. Nothing feels safe or secure. Nothing feels like it’s progressing. Maybe this existential limbo is Rachel’s punishment for stealing Tupperware at the office Christmas party. But that wasn’t her fault. It was the really good kind.

Then Rachel meets engaging go-getter Sule. Two second-generation immigrants, who meet at a sticky-floored bar in Piccadilly and share an Uber home. Sule intrigues Rachel, and she hasn’t had sex in two years, so when one thing leads to another, she sleeps with him. A few late nights and a few “what u doin?’’ messages later, they’ve fallen into a causal relationship. Over the next few months, around the contract extension and Brexit negotiations, they realise they’ve begun to offer each other something that neither can find elsewhere; in the middle of a lot of meaninglessness, they’ve found a genuine connection.

Adrift, isolated, and insecure, they scramble for new ways to connect. Somewhere along the line, they decide to explore flipping the narrative. Metaphorically, and very, very literally. Can some playful, passionate pegging provide a pathway through the pitfalls of modern relationships and present the possibility of a deeper bond?

Rachel starts to really like Sule. Sule starts to really like Rachel. And Rachel doesn’t know how to be liked. So self-sabotage seems like the best plan. Memories get twisted, who did what to whom, who f*cked who, literally and metaphorically, gets muddled. And somehow Brexit is still happening. There are two very different sides to this story, yet somehow, you’re rooting for everyone to come out OK. But of course, nobody ever wins.

The Misandrist was longlisted for the Womens’ Playwriting Prize and reached the final 40 scripts in the Verity Bargate Award . It also reached the final 40 for the BBC Writers Academy and final 30 scripts of the BBC Comedy Room among nearly 3,500 applications. This is its debut run.

The play will run at the Arcola Theatre from May 10–June 10, 2023.

Royal Court hosts Wynter’s Black Superhero

Pose and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story star Dyllón Burnside will make his London debut as the star of Black Superhero.

Danny Lee Wynter’s new play will run at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs from March 14-April 29.

Directed by co-artistic director designate of the RSC Daniel Evans, the cast also includes Ben Allen, Dominic Holmes, Eloka Ivo, Danny Lee Wynter, Ako Mitchel and Rochenda Sandall.

Wynter’s debut play is described as a brutal, unflinching and funny portrait of one man’s life spiraling out of control, in an age where our idols are Kings and our superheroes Gods.

Wynter said: “I feel lucky to have this extraordinarily accomplished group of artists come together to tell this story about a messy, funny, complicated, often savage group of queer friends who drive a man towards his own journey of healing and self acceptance. I wanted to write a big, epic story that asks difficult questions about who and where we are.

“Black Superhero is a love letter to the theatre. A subversion of the historical notion that a black, gay man – both in art and the world – is merely an adjunct, a side-note, an unserious man or a source only of amusement. He can, of course, be fun, but he’s also many other things; things the world has made him; things he has learnt to be for his own survival. I wanted to place him front and centre at the heart of the kind of narrative that many of us brown boys who like men have, for the most part, been culturally starved of since we entered the world. I have tried to present his myriad flaws, his fears, his sensuality, his intimate desires. To celebrate him, and those like him, by ultimately allowing him to own all of it; by becoming the hero of his own story.”

Richmond welcomes Home, I’m Darling

Doc Martin’s Jessica Ransom will lead the cast of Home, I’m Darling when it arrives at Richmond Theatre this April.

Ransom will star as Judy alongside Diane Keen (Doctors) as Sylvia and Neil McDermott (EastEnders) as Johnny.

Home, I’m Darling comes to Richmond as part of a national tour following acclaimed seasons at the National Theatre and in the West End

Written by Laura Wade, the comedy is about one woman’s quest to be the perfect 1950s housewife.

It received its world premiere at Theatr Clwyd in 2018, before playing at the National Theatre and then transferring to the Duke of York’s Theatre in the West End, winning the 2019 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.

This production reunites the entire original creative team, led by Theatr Clwyd artistic director and co-director designate of the Royal
Shakespeare Company, Tamara Harvey. It is co-directed by Hannah Noone, with design by Olivier award-winner Anna Fleischle, lighting by Lucy Carter, sound design by Tom Gibbons and choreography by Charlotte Broom.

Hampstead invites Sea Creatures, Biscuits for Breakfast and Stumped downstairs

Hampstead Theatre has unveiled three new plays for its Downstairs space for spring 2023.

Sea Creatures, running from March 24-April 29, marks the world premiere of Cordelia Lynn’s play, directed by James Macdonald.

Set in a cottage by the sea, four women live in a house made for five. Meals are prepared, stories are shared and the tide breaks on the shore. When only one of their two guests arrive for the summer, it isn’t quite the reunion they were all hoping for.
Lynn is an award-winning playwright whose other work includes Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar Warehouse), Three Sisters (Almeida) and One for Sorrow (Royal Court).

A second world premiere is Biscuits for Breakfast by Gareth Farr, directed by Tessa Walker. It will run from May 5-April 29.

A tender story of dreams and survival, Joanne and Paul aren’t an obvious match – she is spiky, defensive and a survivor, while he is quiet, considered and hiding profound grief for his father. The pleasure Paul takes in cooking – and the astonishing food he prepares – creates a bond between them. When the hotel where they both work closes and they start to spiral into poverty, it throws everything up in the air – first the dreams of a cookbook and a restaurant, and, eventually, even the dreams of a future together.
Farr’s play Britannia Waves the Rules (Royal Exchange Manchester) won the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2011.

Stumped, by Shomit Dutta and directed by Guy Unsworth, will have its stage premiere from June 16-July 22.

Before Samuel Beckett became the playwright universally known for Waiting for Godot, he was a cricketer. He is still the only Nobel prize-winner to feature in the pages of Wisden as a first-class player. His friend and fellow Nobel prize-winner, Harold Pinter, whose best-known works include The Birthday Party and Betrayal, described cricket as ‘the greatest thing that God created on earth’.
Exploring what the friendship between these two playwrights may have looked like, Stumped, was first streamed online as a digital only production in 2022. Now, Dutta has extended it into a full-length play and its stage premiere at Hampstead Theatre coincides with the Ashes test match at Lord’s, a stone’s throw from the theatre.

Full creative teams and cast for all three plays will be announced in due course.

Poirot returns as David Suchet heads to Hampstead

David Suchet is bringing his show Poirot and More, A Retrospective to Hampstead Theatre on the back of its West End run.

A limited run of just 18 performances will offer audiences an insight into Suchet’s career as he discusses some of his most acclaimed performances.

Poirot and More, A Retrospective is described as a celebration of Suchet’s stage and screen career spanning five decades and an array of roles. He is best known as playing Agatha Christie’s elegant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot for more than 25 years.

However, the Emmy-winning actor has been celebrated for playing iconic roles such as Lady Bracknell, Cardinal Benelli and Sigmund Freud. Around the world, he has also brought the literary greats to life, including Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Edward Albee.

Suchet said: “Following the success of my one man show in the West End and on Tour last year, and in the light of the 100% cut in Arts Council funding which Hampstead Theatre is having to navigate, I wanted to show my support by bringing my show to this wonderful intimate theatre for a strictly limited season. I was last on stage at Hampstead Theatre in 1987 in Separation, directed by Mike Attenborough, so I think it’s about time!”

Poirot and More, A Retrospective is at Hampstead Theatre from 11 – 29 March. Tickets are now on sale for priority bookers and on general sale from 10.30am on Thursday 9 February at hampsteadtheatre.com.

Dirty Dancing back at the Dominion

Rehearsals are underway for Dirty Dancing, the smash hit musical based on this film of the same name.

Boasting heart-pounding music, breathtaking emotion and sensationally sexy dancing, the classic story follows Baby and Johnny, two fiercely independent young spirits from different worlds, who come together in what will be the most challenging and triumphant summer of their lives

The show also features a dazzling 35 songs, including Hungry Eyes, Hey Baby, Do You Love Me? and the iconic (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.

The cast includes Michael O’Reilly as Johnny Castle, Kira Malou as Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman, Charlotte Gooch as Penny Johnson, Lynden Edwards as Dr Jake Houseman and Jackie Morrison as Majorie Houseman, as well as Georgina Castle, Danny Colligan, Colin Charles, Alastair Crosswell, Michael Remick, Lydia Sterling, Tony Stansfield, Chrissy Brooke, Inez Budd, Lily Laight, Hollie-Ann Lowe, Callum Fitzgerald, Nathan Ryles, Joel Benjamin, Shaquille Brush, Charlitte Coggin, Carly Miles, Sophia Mcavoy, Lee Nicholson, Ben Middleton and Ayden Morgan.

Kellerman’s Band features Richard John, Miles Russel, Tom Parsons, Morgan Burgess, Christopher Fry and Tom Mussell.

Dirty Dancing is at the Dominion Theatre from January 21-April 29, 2023.

Cast announced for Women, Beware the Devil

Rehersals have started for Women, Beware the Devil, which debuts at the Almeida Theatre next month.

Written by Lulu Raczka (Antigone) and directed by Rupert Goold (Tammy Faye), the cast includes Leo Bill (The Duchess of Malfi), Carly-Sophia Davies (Spring Awakening), Aurora Dawson-Hunte (Sex Education), Ioanna Kimbook (Daddy), Nathan Laryea (Spring Awakening), Lydia Leonard (Wolf Hall), Alison Oliver (Conversations with Friends) and Lola Shalam, in her professional debut.

Set in England, 1640, a war is brewing, rumours are flying, a household is in crisis… and the Devil’s having some fun.

For Lady Elizabeth nothing is more important than protecting her family’s legacy and their ancestral home. When that comes under threat, she elicits the help of Agnes, a young servant suspected of witchcraft. But Agnes has dark dreams of her own for this house.

The creative team also includes set designer Miriam Buether, costume designer Evie Gurney, lighting designer Tim Lutkin, sound designer and composer Adam Cork, casting director Amy Ball, costume supervisor Peter Todd and assistant director Dubheasa Lanipekun.

Women, Beware the Devil runs at the Almeida Theatre from February 11-25.