FULL CAST ANNOUNCED AND REHEARSALS BEGIN FOR WORLD PREMIERE OF NEVER LET ME GO AT ROSE THEATRE
New stage adaptation opens in Kingston upon Thames before tour to Royal & Derngate, Malvern Theatres, Bristol Old Vic, and Chichester Festival Theatre
The full cast for a new stage adaptation of Nobel Prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s best-selling novel Never Let Me Go includes Amelie Abbott (Hannah/Chrissi), Susan Aderin (Miss Emily), Matilda Bailes (Ruth), Nell Barlow (Kathy), Maximus Evans (Philip), Angus Imrie (Tommy), Princess Khumalo (Laura), Emile Patry (Miss Lucy/Madame), and Tristan Waterson (Rodney/Alfie). Rehearsals start today before performances begin at the Rose Theatre in Kingston on Friday, 20 September before moving to Royal & Derngate, Malvern Theatres, Bristol Old Vic, and Chichester Festival Theatre through late November. Press night is Wednesday, 25 September.
The previously announced creative team includes Suzanne Heathcote (Adapter), Christopher Haydon (Director), Tom Piper (Set and Costume Designer), Ayse Tashkiran (Movement Director), Joshua Carr (Lighting Designer), Eamonn O’Dwyer (Composer), Carolyn Downing (Sound Designer), Sam Jones CDG (Casting Director), Haruka Kuroda (Fight Director), and Emma Denson (Assistant Director).
As announced last week, Olivier Award nominee Marisha Wallace (Guys & Dolls) has recorded the title song for the production. Wallace does not appear live on stage but instead offers her exquisite vocals to the recording of this original song, which features in the play. A behind-the-scenes video of the recording session can be viewed here.
As the production was announced this spring, Kazuo Ishiguro said, “I’m filled with excitement by news of the upcoming production of Never Let Me Go. Suzanne Heathcote is a superb writer for both stage and screen. Christopher Haydon directed a beautiful adaptation of my The Remains of the Day not long ago. And the arrival of this new version of Never Let Me Go feels particularly well-timed. Its central question – How do we find and hold onto love in a world ruled by out-of-control science and savage hierarchical structures? – feels even more haunting today than when I wrote the novel twenty years ago. I look forward to discovering how this wonderfully talented team will re-imagine the story for the stage and for our time.”
“Never Let Me Go has been among my favourite novels since I first read it two decades ago. It is an achingly beautiful story of how we maintain hope, and continue to love in the face of a hostile world. It’s become one of the world’s best loved novels and has all of the elements of a great piece of theatre,” says Christopher Haydon, Artistic Director, who directs the production. “I’m thrilled to be heading into the rehearsal room today to start bringing this incredible story to life with this cast.”
Never Let Me Go is being co-produced with Bristol Old Vic, Malvern Theatres, and Royal & Derngate, Northampton, where the production will play following its premiere at the Rose; tickets are now on sale at all co-producing theatres. The production will also be part of Chichester Festival’s upcoming Winter Season, with tickets going on sale there in September.
Amelie Abbott (Hannah / Chrissie)
Amelie is a recent graduate of The BRIT School and The Rose Youth Theatre. Credits whilst training include: The Unreturning; and Romeo and Juliet. Past Rose Theatre credits: Peter Pan; A Christmas Carol; Beauty And The Beast; Our Town; Hansel and Gretel; Alice in Wonderland; The Wind In The Willows; and A Christmas Carol. Theatre credits: The Gunpowder Plot (Interactive Video for Layered Reality). TV, Film & Radio credits: The Sister Boniface Mysteries; Halfway; Freddie; Cur(s)ed; and Billy Goats Gruff, Children’s Story Telling – Cartoonito Tales.
Susan Aderin (Miss Emily)
Theatre credits: Can I Help You (Playing On Theatre Company); Hidden (Manchester Camerata – Hidden was the Winner of the Best Performance Award at The Manchester Culture Awards); The Tide Whisperer (National Theatre Wales); Consumables (The King’s Head); Silver Gym (Queens Theatre Hornchurch); Pandora’s Box (Spora Stories/Arcola Theatre); King Baabu – International Tour (Nawao Productions); Peer Gynt (Royal National Theatre); Romeo & Juliet (Royal National Theatre); On the Plastic (Avon Touring); The Beatification of Area Boy (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Crimes of Passion (Nottingham Playhouse Trust); Marching for Fausa (Royal Court Theatre); Flamingo (Gate Theatre); Medea (Manchester Royal Exchange); The Crucible (Manchester Royal Exchange); Brainpower (Quicksilver Theatre); and The Gods Are Not to Blame (Talawa Theatre). TV credits: EastEnders; The Ballad of Renegade Nell; My Friend Misty; Foundation; Guerrilla; Beowulf; Rapunzel; The Last Detective; Doctors; Casualty; Big Women; Jailbirds; and Thief Takers. Film credits: The Spiral Show, The Edge, Sunday in the Vale of Tears, No Entry, and KoKo.
Matilda Bailes (Ruth)
Matilda graduated from LAMDA in 2021. Theatre credits: Shooting Hedda Gabler (Rose Theatre); Persuasion (Rose Theatre/Alexandra Palace/Oxford Playhouse); and Sparks, Fen, Be My Baby, Boy, Measure for Measure, Present Laughter (LAMDA). TV, Film & Radio credits: Mr Bates vs the Post Office; Doctors; and The Strange Disappearance of Aila Hydrii.
Nell Barlow (Kathy)
Nell Barlow’s breakout performance in which she played the lead in British independent film Sweetheart earned her the Breakthrough Performance award at the 2021 BIFAs as well as the BAFTA Breakthrough award in 2022. Theatre credits: 4000 Miles (Chichester Festival Theatre); and How To Build A Wax Figure (November Theatre). TV credits: An American In Austen, Consent, Behind Her Eyes, Married To A Paedophile, and Doctor Thorne. Film: Day Trippers, Where Is Anne Frank, and Sweetheart. Short Film credits: Torr, and The Fool’s Mate. Awards: Sweetheart, Breakthrough Performance, BIFA, 2021 and Sweetheart, BAFTA Breakthrough, BAFTA, 2022.
Maximus Evans (Philip)
Maximus graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama this summer 2024. Productions while training include: Days of Significance; The Comedy of Errors. Television credits: Coronation Street, The Bay; and Creeped Out. Awards: Best villain, ITV British Soap Awards 2022. This marks his professional theatre debut and first production with Rose theatre.
Angus Imrie (Tommy)
Theatre credits: Deluge (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre); and Nell Gwynn, Richard II (Shakespeare’s Globe). TV credits: The Road Trip; Serpent Queen; Star Trek: Prodigy; The Crown; Fleabag; and Industry. Film credits: Mickey 17; Back to the Outback; Emma; and The Kid Who Would Be King. Radio credits: The Archers; and Howl’s Moving Castle. Training: London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Princess Khumalo (Laura)
Princess Khumalo is a Zimbabwean-British actor who grew up in the North of Yorkshire. She trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. Theatre credits: The Independent Socialist Republic of The Upper End of The Lower Breck Road (Liverpool’s Royal Court The Other Room); We Need New Names (Fifth Word, New Perspectives); The Ultimate Pickle, Half Empty Glasses (Paines Plough); A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain (Paines Plough, The Gate Theatre); Sleepover (All Things Considered Theatre Company); That’s What She Said (Out The Attic); and The Streets Where We Live (Falling Doors, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse). TV, Film & Radio credits: Holier Than Thou; Doctors; Becoming God; and So Awkward.
Emilie Patry (Miss Lucy / Madame)
Emilie is a bilingual French/English actor. Having trained both in Paris and London, she has worked extensively in the UK and Europe. Training: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama / Studio Création Formation (Paris).
Theatre credits: Image of An Unknown Young Woman & The Christians (Gate Theatre, London); Ghost Light (National Theatre of Scotland); 2019 Summer Season, A Christmas Carol (Pitlochry Festival Theatre); The Gamblers (Greyscale / Dundee Rep co-production, UK tour); Macbeth, Twelfth Night and Henry V (Bard in the Botanics); A Beginning, Middle and an End (Traverse / Tron); The Return (Eden Court Theatre); Stars in the Morning Sky (Riverside Studios); Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down (Arcola); Les Isles Kerguelen (Théatre De La Tempête, Paris); and Bastringue (L’etoile Du Nord, Paris). TV, Film & Radio credits: Casualty 1907; Behind Closed Doors; The Advocates; and Gayle Tuesday. Awards: The Christians, Best Female Performance in a Supporting Role, The Offie Awards, 2016.
Tristan Waterson (Rodney / Alfie)
Tristan most recently appeared in Dear England which won ‘Best New Play’ at the Olivier Awards 2024. Theatre credits: Beautiful Thing (Tobacco Factory Theatres); The Spine (20 Stories High); All Roads (Attic Theatre Company); and Dear England (National Theatre Productions / Delfont Mackintosh). TV, Film & Radio credits: Holy Beef; Secret Life of Boys; Kidnapped; and Faith Hope & Glory.
NEVER LET ME GO
20 September – 12 October 2024
A Rose Original Production with Bristol Old Vic, Malvern Theatres, and Royal & Derngate, Northampton.
You were brought into this world for a purpose.
And your futures — all of them — have been decided.
A play by Suzanne Heathcote
Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro
Directed by Christopher Haydon
Kazuo Ishiguro’s international best-selling novel arrives on stage in this world premiere of Suzanne Heathcote’s gripping new adaptation.
What if you discovered your whole reason for being was not about your life but about making someone else’s possible? Your dreams, your desires, your love for another, all of them irrelevant in a world that values only what you give, without question or condition, to someone you’ve never met andwill never know.
Memory and reality collide in this stunning new staging that challenges us to think about what it means to be human. What it means to have hope and heart — to love and to lose.
Age Guidance: 12+
www.rosetheatre.org/never-let-me-go
Royal & Derngate, 16-26 October | www.royalandderngate.co.uk/whats-on/never-let-me-go
Malvern Theatres, 29 October – 2 November | www.malvern-theatres.co.uk/whats-on/never-let-go
Bristol Old Vic, 5-23 November | www.bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/never-let-me-go
Chichester Festival, 26-30 November (tickets on sale in September) | www.cft.org.uk