KILN THEATRE ANNOUNCES MAJOR REVIVAL OF MOIRA BUFFINI’S HANDBAGGED
With Marina Carr’s Girl on an Altar opening later this month, Artistic Director of Kiln Theatre Indhu Rubasingham today announces a major revival of Moira Buffini’s critically acclaimed Handbagged. Reprising their roles are Marion Bailey as ‘Q’, an Older Queen Elizabeth II and Kate Fahy as ‘T’, an Older Margaret Thatcher, with further cast to be announced shortly.
The original production opened at the Theatre in 2013 before transferring to the West End’s Vaudeville Theatre in 2014, ahead of a UK tour in 2015, and performances in New York and Washington in 2019.
Indhu Rubasingham said today, “I’m very excited to have the special opportunity to revisit this modern Kiln classic. I first worked with Moira Buffini in 2010 when she wrote a short, satirical piece about Margaret Thatcher as part of my Women, Power and Politics season. One of the first things I did when I became Artistic Director was to commission a full-length version. Looking back now, it’s incredible to think of the journey Handbagged has been on, transferring to the West End, then around the country on a major UK tour and onto New York and Washington. Moira and I were both ‘Thatcher’s children’ and, undoubtedly, whether knowingly or unknowingly, our own journeys, like so many watching the play, have been hugely influenced by these two women. It is a pleasure to share this major revival with a different generation, and to find new resonances in such ridiculous, tumultuous political times. I’m also thrilled that Marion and Kate are returning as Liz and Maggie!”
Kiln Theatre presents
HANDBAGGED
by Moira Buffini
9 September – 22 October 2022
Cast includes: Marion Bailey and Kate Fahy
Directed by Indhu Rubasingham;Designer Richard Kent; Lighting Designer Oliver Fenwick;
Sound Designer Carolyn Downing; Casting Director Briony Barnett CDG
Following the sell-out 2013 season and subsequent West End and New York runs The Queen and the Iron Lady are reunited on the Kiln stage.
The monarch.
Her most powerful subject.
Born six months apart, each had a destiny that would change the world. But when the stiff upper lip softened and the gloves came off, which one had the upper hand?
Indhu Rubasingham directs Moira Buffini’s wickedly funny hit-comedy that imagines what the world’s most powerful women Margaret Thatcher and Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II, talked about behind closed palace doors.
Marion Bailey reprises her role as ‘Q’, an older Queen Elizabeth II. Her theatre work includes The Deep Blue Sea, Blurred Lines, Grief (National Theatre), A Kind of Alaska (Bristol Old Vic), Death of a Salesman (West Yorkshire Playhouse), for Shared Experience: Mine, War & Peace, Kindertransport (Hampstead Theatre), The Arab Israeli Cookbook, Dance of Death (Kiln Theatre / Tricycle), Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness, Blessed be the Tie, This is a Chair (Royal Court), Cloud Nine (The Old Vic), and Holes In The Skin (Chichester Festival Theatre). For television, her work includes All the Light WE Cannot See, Damage, Shakespeare and Hathaway, The Dreamer, This is Going to Hurt, The Crown as The Queen Mother, Britannia, Temple, The Trials of Jimmy Rose, Him & Her, Being Human, Case Histories, Monday Monday, New Tricks, Persuasion, De-Railed, Cherished, Micawber, Shades, The Thing About Vince, Under the Sun and Shine On Harvey Moon. For film, Brighton Beach Scumbags, Peterloo, Dead in a Week, Allied, Lady in the Van, Mr Turner, I’ll Be There, Vera Drake, All or Nothing, Offending Angels, The Family Business, Nasty Neighbours, Psychotherapy, Meantime, Sakharov, Way Upstream, and Coppers.
Kate Fahy plays ‘T’, an older Margaret Thatcher. For theatre her credits include A Lie of the Mind (Southwark Playhouse), Winter Solstice, Definitely the Bahamas (Orange Tree Theatre), After Electra (Kiln Theatre / Tricycle), The Goat (Almeida Theatre and Apollo Theatre), Copenhagen (Watford Palace Theatre), Grace, Gaucho and Sparrowfall (Hampstead Theatre), Seduced (Royal Court), Old Flames (Arts Theatre), A Doll’s House (Riverside Studios), Bouncing and Sunday Morning (National Theatre) and Othello (Young Vic). For television her work includes Don’t Forget the Driver, Witless, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, Death in Paradise, Cherished, Pure Wickedness, The Best Man, The House of Elliott, The Jury, Trial and Retribution, The Mozart Inquest, Danton’s Death, Terra Nova, Oxbridge Blues, The Lodger and The Nearly Man. For film, Marriage of Reason and Squalor, Archipelago, Defiance, Brilliance, The Show, The Living and The Dead, The Fourth Angel, Somewhere Sometime.
Moira Buffini‘s plays include NW Trilogy (Kiln Theatre), Handbagged (Kiln Theatre / Tricycle / West End / US), Manor (National Theatre), Gabriel (Soho Theatre / UK Tour), wonder.land (MIF / National Theatre), Welcome to Thebes, A Vampire Story (National Theatre), Dying For It, Marianne Dreams (Almeida Theatre), Dinner (RNT Loft / West End / UK tour), Loveplay (Barbican), The Games Room (Soho Theatre) and Blavatsky’s Tower (Machine Room). For television, her work includes Harlots; and for film, The Dig, Jane Eyre and Tamara Drewe.
Indhu Rubasingham is Artistic Director of Kiln Theatre. Her work for the company includes Zadie Smith’s The Wife of Willesden from Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath, The Invisible Hand, Pass Over, When the Crows Visit, Wife, White Teeth, Holy Sh!t, Red Velvet (which transferred to New York and later to the Garrick Theatre as part of the Kenneth Branagh Season), Handbagged (winner of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre – also West End, UK tour, Washington DC and New York), A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes, Multitudes, The House That Will Not Stand, Paper Dolls, Women, Power and Politics, Stones in His Pockets, Detaining Justice, The Great Game: Afghanistan, Fabulation and Starstruck. Other theatre credits include The Father and the Assassin, The Great Wave, Ugly Lies the Bone, The Motherf**cker with the Hat (Evening Standard Award for Best Play), The Waiting Room (all National Theatre), The Ramayana (National Theatre/ Birmingham Rep), Belong, Disconnect, Free Outgoing, Lift Off, Clubland, The Crutch and Sugar Mummies (Royal Court Theatre), Ruined (Almeida Theatre), Yellowman and Anna in the Tropics (Hampstead Theatre), Secret Rapture and The Misanthrope (Minerva, Chichester Festival Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Chichester Festival Theatre), Pure Gold (Soho Theatre), The No Boys Cricket Club and Party Girls (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Wuthering Heights (Birmingham REP), Heartbreak House (Watford Palace Theatre), Sugar Dollies and Shakuntala (Gate Theatre), A River Sutra (Three Mill Island Studios), Rhinoceros (UC Davis, California) and A Doll’s House (Young Vic).
KILN THEATRE
Listings
Kiln Theatre
269 Kilburn High Road, London, UK, NW6 7JR
Box Office: 020 7328 1000
GIRL ON AN ALTAR
19 May – 25 June 2022
Post Show Q&A 7 June 2022, 7.30pm
Captioned Performance 9 June 2022, 7.30pm
Audio Described Performance 16 June 2022, 7.30pm
THE DARKEST PART OF THE NIGHT
14 July – 6 August 2022
Post Show Q&A 26 July 2022, 7.30pm
Captioned Performance 1 August 2022, 7.30pm
Audio Described Performance 4 August 2022, 7.30pm
Relaxed Performance 6 August 2022, 2.30pm
HANDBAGGED
9 September – 22 October 2022
Captioned Performance 29 September, 7.30pm
Post Show Q&A 18 October, 7.30pm
Audio Described Performance 20 October, 7.30pm
Tickets to all productions now available
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