ViSiBLE TODAY ANNOUNCES FULL CAST AND NEW DATES FOR
THE WORLD PREMIÈRE OF
FIVE CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
ViSiBLE,a theatre company dedicated to creating work focused on later life, today announce the full cast and new dates for the world première of Five Characters in Search of a Good Night’s Sleep, devised by Mike Alfreds and Sonja Linden with the company – Geraldine Alexander, Andrew Hawkins, Sally Knyvette, Gary Lilburn and Vincenzo Nicoli. The production, originally postponed due to Covid-19 in 2020, opens at Southwark Playhouse on 29 April, with previews from 27 April, and runs until 21 May.
Sonja Linden said today, “It feels wonderful and very special to reunite our fantastic cast of older actors to share this production, having had to postpone the 2020 run. In this show we explore the universal experience of sleep and those moments where it proves elusive, something that many, particularly as we get older can relate to.”
ViSiBLE presents
The World Première of
FIVE CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
Devised by Mike Alfreds and Sonja Linden with the company
Directed by Mike Alfreds; Set and Costume Designer: Agnes Treplin
Lighting Designer: Neill Brinkworth
Southwark Playhouse
27 April – 21 May 2022
Five insomniacs try to make it through the night. From dusk to dawn, they struggle with a crisis in their lives which they must resolve by morning. Increasingly conscious of their shortening futures and lengthening pasts, they fill their nights with distracting activities, desperate sleep techniques, evaluations of their lives, delusions, fears, panics and utter foolishness as they prepare to face the day.
Five Characters in Search of a Good Night’s Sleep has been developed over a two-year period through a series of workshop in which all the material for the play was created by the actors.
Mike Alfreds is an award-winning theatre director, adapter, translator, teacher and previous Artistic Director and founder of theatre companies Shared Experience and Method and Madness. His previous credits as a director include Year of Wonders, The Tin Ring (The Lowry), Cymbeline (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Wandering Jew, The Black Dahlia, The Cherry Orchard – Winner of Critics’ Circle Theatre Award(National Theatre), A Handful of Dust, Jude The Obscure (Lyric Hammersmith), La Ronde, The Miser, Arabian Nights (UK tours) and Bleak House (Royal Court Theatre). His credits as an author include Different Every Night: Freeing the Actor (2007), Then What Happens? Storytelling and Adapting for the Theatre (2013).
Sonja Linden’s credits as a playwright includecredits include Roundelay, Who Do We Think We Are? (Southwark Playhouse), Welcome to Ramallah (Arcola Theatre/York Theatre Royal), Crocodile Seeking Refuge (Lyric Hammersmith/UK tour), I Have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me By A Young Lady From Rwanda (Finborough Theatre/UK tour/US tour), On A Clear Day You Can See Dover (Wilton’s Music Hall/UK tour), Asylum Monologues, Palestine Monologues (UK tours), Asylum Dialogues (Tricycle Theatre/UK tour), The Strange Passenger (Battersea Arts Centre/UK tour), The Jewish Daughter (New End Theatre) and Call Me Judas (Finborough Theatre).
Geraldine Alexander’s theatre credits include Draw Me Close (Young Vic), Oslo, Strange Interlude, Pillars of the Community (National Theatre), Persuasion, Breaking the Code, Present Laughter (Royal Exchange Theatre), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (UK tour), Holy Warriors, Titus Andronicus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe), In Skagway (Arcola Theatre), The Empty Quarter (Hampstead Theatre), The Welsh Boy (Theatre Royal Bath), For Once (Hampstead Theatre/Traverse Theatre), In Praise of Love (Royal & Derngate Northampton), State of Emergency (Gate Theatre) and Holy Terror (UK tour/Duke of York’s Theatre). Her television credits include Oslo, The One, Bridgerton, The Child in Time, Marcella, Quick Cuts, Shetland, Extras, The Man, Forgotten, Bust and Miss Marple: Sleeping Murder; and for film, Messages, The Discovery of Heaven, Merchant Garcon, The Wall of Tyranny and The Nightingale Sage.
Andrew Hawkins’ credits for the company include Who Do We Think We Are? and Roundelay (Southwark Playhouse). Other theatre credits include Flight (The National Gallery, London), To the Bone (Rich Mix), Naked, Live… and Never Again (Edinburgh Festival Fringe), Heldenplatz (Arcola Theatre), I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Written by a Young Lady from Rwanda (Finborough Theatre), A Wedding Story (Birmingham Rep/Soho Theatre/UK tour), King Lear (Royal Exchange Theatre), The Cenci, Katerina (Lyric Hammersmith), Time and the Conways (Theatr Clwyd/The Old Vic/UK tour and Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto), Married Love (Wyndham’s Theatre/UK tour), Nicholas Nickleby (Aldwych Theatre and Plymouth Theatre, New York), The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Aldwych Theatre), The Suicide (Donmar Warehouse/Aldwych Theatre), Baal, Pericles (Donmar Warehouse), and The Merchant of Venice and Robin Hood (Young Vic). His television credits include Martial Law, Bugs, Moving Story, Citizen Locke, Tropical Heat, The Black Tower, Good Behaviour and The Glittering Prizes; and for film, The Art of Love, Tomorrow Never Dies, Shadowlands, Son of the Pink Panther, The Object of Beauty, The Whistle Blower, Top Secret! and Chariots of Fire.
Sally Knyvette’s theatre credits include King Lear (City Lit Theatre), Divine Right (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), Jack and the Giant (Royal Exchange Theatre), Rule of the Game (Churchill Theatre/Yvonne Arnaud Theatre) and Sawn off at the Knees (Sheffield Theatres). Her television credits include as series regular Kate Sugden in Emmerdale and Jenna Stannis in Blake’s 7.
Gary Lilburn’s theatre credits include Trouble in Mind (National Theatre), Pinocchio (Citizens Theatre), As You Like It (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Trestle, The Hairy Ape, The Hostage (Southwark Playhouse), The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Golden Ass (Shakespeare’s Globe), Deluge, Buried Alive, Tuesday’s Child (Hampstead Theatre), The Cripple of Inishmaan (MGC at the Noël Coward Theatre/Cort Theatre, New York), The Kingdom, Angels and Saints (Soho Theatre), Calendar Girls (Chichester Festival Theatre/Noël Coward Theatre), The Man Who Had All The Luck (Donmar Warehouse), The Quare Fellow (Tricycle Theatre/Oxford Stage Company), To Kill a Mockingbird, Hen House (Arcola Theatre), The Weir (Royal Court Theatre) and The Measles (Gate Theatre). For television his credits include Belgravia, Paula, Catastrophe, Mrs Brown’s Boys, Pete Versus Life, I Shouldn’t Be Alive, Whistleblower, Single-Handed, Perfect Day: The Funeral, Pulling, Sea of Souls, 55 Degrees North, Dalziel and Pascoe, McCready and Daughter, My Family and Perfect Scoundrels; and for film, Philomena, Eden, Garage, and Veronica Guerin.
Vincenzo Nicoli’s credits for the company include Roundelay (Southwark Playhouse). Other theatre credits include The Merchant of Venice (Almeida Theatre), The Shawshank Redemption (Edinburgh Festival Fringe), The Revenger’s Tragedy (Hoxton Hall), The Kitchen (National Theatre), On the Waterfront (Nottingham Playhouse/Theatre Royal Haymarket), Yerma (Arcola Theatre), Pool Death (Salisbury Playhouse) and Things You Shouldn’t (Soho Theatre). His television credits include Roadkill, Housebound, Father Brown, Our Girl, The Coroner, I Want My Wife Back, Hank Zipzer, The Prey and Mr Selfridge; and for film, Captain Phillips, The Dark Knight, Enemy of the Unseen, Sixty Six, Rabbit Fever, Razor’s Edge, Odyssey, In Love and War, Joseph and Aliens 3.
FIVE CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
Listings
77 – 85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD
Box Office: www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/ 020 7407 0234
27 April – 21 May 2022
Tickets: £22 (£18 concessions)
Previews: £14
Recommended: Age 12+