METTA THEATRE, ROYAL & DERNGATE NORTHAMPTON, QUEEN’S THEATRE HORNCHURCH & STEPHEN JOSEPH THEATRE PRESENT
CELLS
A NEW MUSICAL FILM
STARRING CLIVE ROWE AND LEM KNIGHTS
FIRST EPISODE RELEASED 19 APRIL
EPISODES WILL BE AVAILABLE DAILY
FULL FILM AVAILABLE FROM 26 APRIL
ALBUM NOW AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY AND OTHER DIGITAL PLATFORMS
Metta Theatre – one of the UK’s leading production companies devoted to British musical theatre – is pleased to announce the premiere of the first episode of the film of a brand-new musical, CELLS, written, developed and recorded entirely during lockdown by the award-winning writer/director P Burton-Morgan and composer Ben Glasstone. CELLS stars Metta’s recently announced Patron, the Olivier award winning Clive Rowe alongside rising star Lem Knights. The cast album is also available now via Spotify and other digital platforms accessible here.
A university science lab. A kebab shop at 2am. An online gaming forum. Two strangers’ lives become intertwined. Alan Bennett meets The Streets in this tender and uplifting new work, giving voice to the lives of two everyday blokes.
Metta have partnered with three major regional venues – Royal & Derngate Northampton, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough – with each partner venue hosting subsequent episodes on their websites, as follows:
EPISODE 2: Tuesday 20 April Royal & Derngate
EPISODE 3: Weds 21 April Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch
EPISODE 4: Thurs 22 April Stephen Joseph Theatre
EPISODE 5: Friday 23 April Royal & Derngate
EPISODE 6: Saturday 24 April Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch
EPISODE 7: Sunday 25 April Stephen Joseph Theatre
The full film will be available on Monday 26 April and will be free to all to access via YouTube with a suggested donation (£3 per episode, £10 for the whole film) – all of which will go to the three regional theatres to help support their recovery.
https://www.mettatheatre.co.uk/cells
CELLS is written and directed by P Burton-Morgan (Madam Butterfly UK tour, In the Willows, UK tour, Jungle Book UK & International Tour), with music by Ben Glasstone, mixed and mastered by Simon Small and the Musical Director is Phil Cornwell. The Director of Photography is Jon Dickinson, the films are edited by Will Reynolds. Phil Cornwell plays keys and double bass and Curtis Volp is on guitar.
P Burton-Morgan, who in 2020 won the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award for musical theatre book writing for In the Willows explains, “It’s extraordinary to think about what we achieved in 2 days of rehearsal, 2 days in the recording studio and just 4 days of filming. But what’s even more extraordinary is how this piece – which was written as, and one day hopefully soon will be produced as, a stage musical, exists so fully as a film in its own right. It’s thrilling to stretch two artforms to meet each other and I hope paves the way for more theatre projects that are not merely ‘captured’ on film (and of course as an album too) but exist across a diversity of media forms as a myriad of artworks in their own right.”
Clive Rowe said, “It’s so rare to work on such a new and innovative piece of musical/theatre/film. P Burton-Morgan’s wonderful book and lyrics, brought vividly to life by Ben Glasstone’s music, create an exquisitely crafted landscape for Neil and JoJo to express their visions of the world they live in. And working with fresh new talent Lem Knights was pure joy.”
Lem Knights said, “I grew up watching Clive on screen and as a young lad, I dreamt of being on the other side of the little tele box. Only went and bloomin did it didn’t I?! It was a joy to work with Clive and bring Poppy’s beautiful vision to life. It was such a unique and special project full of Ben’s fantastic music, laughter, kebabs and gravy.”
P Burton-Morgan and Ben Glasstone met on the musical theatre writing training programme Book, Music and Lyrics in 2017. They have also written The Rhythmics together – a mid-life crisis of masculinity musical about Manchester’s premier all male Rhythmics Gymnastics performance ensemble. One of the songs ‘Waiting To Begin’ won second prize in the Stiles & Drewe Song Prize 2019 and later that year they workshopped the show at The Other Palace and Birmingham Rep. They released a cast album of The Rhythmics in 2020 and hope to premiere the piece as soon as such things are legal again.
Established in 2005 by P Burton-Morgan and Motley trained Designer William Reynolds, Metta Theatre has been at the forefront of new work – with a strong focus on the development of new British musicaltheatre, and a commitment to highlighting climate justice and sustainability; disability and deaf integration and inclusion (both from a political perspective and in order to artistically enrich the work); queering mainstream and family theatre – writing characters that represent and normalise (rather than problematise) the diverse range of queer experiences and identities; re-gendering protagonists in order to give girls strong female role models.
During the 2020 pandemic, the company focussed on the launch of two other studio albums and music videos for THE RHYTHMICS and HOUSEFIRE, as well as the launch of environmental consultancy Metta Green.