BUSH THEATRE ANNOUNCES CASTING FOR ‘FORGET ME NOT’ BY TOM HOLLOWAY

CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR ‘FORGET ME NOT’ BY TOM HOLLOWAY

• Eleanor Bron returns to the stage after more than a decade, alongside Russell Floyd, Sarah Ridgeway and Sargon Yelda
• New play about the transport of British orphans to Australia in the 1940s, 50s and 60s

The cast for the UK premiere production of FORGET ME NOT by Tom Holloway is announced today, the complete cast is Eleanor Bron, Russell Floyd, Sarah Ridgeway and Sargon Yelda.

The production, directed by HighTide Festival Theatre’s Artistic Director Steven Atkinson, previews from 08 December (press night 11 December).

FORGET ME NOT (8 December 2015 – 16 January 2016) by Tom Holloway is a co-production between the Bush Theatre and HighTide Festival Theatre.

Under an agreement between the British and Australian Governments, between 1945 and 1968, over three thousand British children were told they were orphans and sent to Australia on a promise of warmth, fresh air, abundant food and boundless opportunity. Instead they arrived to deprived institutions where neglect and abuse were the norm.

Tom Holloway’s tender new play unearths a secret buried by time that, in turn, exposes a world of historical injustices currently in the limelight. This European premiere reunites the Bush Theatre with HighTide Festival Theatre (Incognito by Nick Payne, 2014) and is directed by HighTide’s Artistic Director, Steven Atkinson.

Russell Floyd plays Gerry, Eleanor Bron plays Mary, Sarah Ridgeway plays Sally and Sargon Yelda plays Mark.

Eleanor Bron is well known for being the voice of Carol Tregorran in BBC Radio 4’s The Archers. Her major film credits include Ken Russell’s Women In Love, the children’s classic A Little Princess and the 2012 costume drama Hyde Park on Hudson. She has worked extensively in television and theatre. On stage she has appeared in The Late Middle Classes (Donmar Warehouse),  All About My Mother (Old Vic), The Miser, The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfiand The Cherry Orchard (all National Theatre).

Russell Floyd is best known to television viewers as Michael Rose in EastEnders and as D.C. Ken Drummond in The Bill. His theatre credits include Sir Courtly Nice (RSC), Going To A Party(National Theatre), The Importance Of Being Earnest (Oxford Playhouse), Privates On Parade(Westcliff Palace Theatre), Dracula (Hull Truck), Up And Under (Swansea Theatre Royal), Fit And Proper People (Soho Theatre), the title role in Hangman (Tristan Bates) and, most recently,Happy Birthday Sunita (Watford Palace Theatre and UK / International Tour). Other television credits include London’s Burning, Casualty, Doctors, Dream Team, Frank Stubbs Presents andThe Fridge.

Sarah Ridgeway’s theatre credits include: A Taste of Honey (Salisbury Playhouse), Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare’s Globe), Days of Significance, Titus Andronicus, Candide and A Mad World,My Masters (RSC), You Can’t Take it With You and The Acrington Pals (The Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester), Sucker Punch (The Royal Court), Twelfth Night (Regents Park Open Air Theatre), The Cherry Orchard (The Young Vic and Harrogate for HighTide Festival Theatre). Television credits include: Miss Marple, The Crimson Petal and The White, The Suspicions of Mister Whicher, Satisfaction, Call the Midwife, Dark Matters, The Making of a Lady and Holby City.

Sargon Yelda’s credits include Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and Dara (National Theatre),Teh Internet is Serious Business (Royal Court), Incognito (HighTide Festival Theatre/ Live Theatre/ Bush Theatre), Moby Dick & The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Simple 8/ Arcola Theatre),The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors (RSC), Emperor  & Galilean (RNT), Mother Courage and Her Children (RNT), When the Rain Stops Falling (Almeida), Stovepipe (RNT/Bush Theatre/Hightide) and Salt Meets Wound (Theatre  503).

Tom Holloway is an award-winning Australian playwright. Plays include Beyond the Neck(Performing Lines, Tasmania, 2008 – winner of the Australian Writers’ Guild award for Writing For The Stage), Don’t Say the Words (Griffin Theatre Company and Tasmania Theatre, 2008),Red Sky Morning (Red Stitch Actors Theatre, 2008 – Green Room Award for Best New Australian Play), And No More Shall We Part (In Australia, Griffin Theatre Company, 2011 Winner of the Australian Writers’ Guild for Writing for the Stage and the Louis Esson Victorian Premier’s Award for Literature, in the UK, Hampstead Theatre London and Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, 2012) and Love Me Tender (Company B Belvoir St/ Griffin Theatre Company and Thin Ice, 2009 & 2010), Gambling (Soho Theatre/ Eleanor Lloyd Productions, London 2010), Fatherland (The Gate Theatre, London 2011 and Munich Yung Og Radikal Festival), Forget Me Not (Co-commissioned by Liverpool Everyman and Belvoir Street Theatre and produced by Belvoir, 2013).

Steven Atkinson is the co-founder and Artistic Director of HighTide Festival Theatre. His directing for HighTide includes Lampedusa (Soho Theatre/HighTide Festival), peddling (Arcola Theatre/Off-Broadway/HighTide Festival), Pussy Riot: Hunger Strike (Bush Theatre/Southbank Centre), Neighbors (Nuffield Theatre/HighTide Festival), Bottleneck (Soho Theatre/UK tour), Clockwork, (HighTide Festival), Bethany (HighTide Festival/Public Theater, New York), Incoming (Latitude Festival/HighTide Festival), Dusk Rings A Bell (Watford Palace Theatre/HighTide Festival), Lidless (Trafalgar Studios/HighTide Festival), Muhmah (HighTide Festival), The Pitch (Latitude Festival). His other direction includes Three Card Trick (Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse), The Afghan and the Penguin (BBC Radio 4), Freedom Trilogy (Hull Truck Theatre) and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Edinburgh Festival).

RADAR, the Bush’s festival of new writing, runs from 11-26 November. FORGET ME NOT will be followed by PINK MIST, the acclaimed Bristol Old Vic Production (21 January – 13 February 2016).