Deadline Day

August 30th – September 16th, 7.30pm, Theatre N16

 

BAFTA Rocliffe winning writer John Hickman and Steve Robertson’s new play about class, the North-South divide and the beautiful game premieres at Theatre N16 this Autumn, directed by Theatre N16 associate director Sarah Chapleo.

“The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football” Terry Pratchett

It’s the last day of the transfer window. United, the North East’s biggest club, have put their star player up for sale, and a super-rich London club have bid. You’re United’s biggest fan and the driver transporting the player down south. What do you do?

Deadline Day will star an all Northern cast, including Middlesbrough football club chairman’s daughter Victoria Gibson.

John Hickman is a screenwriter, director and author based in Newcastle upon Tyne. As well as being selected for this year’s prestigious Guiding Lights mentor scheme, he has successfully completed a BBC Drama shadow scheme, and is now writing for a number of BBC series. His children’s television script The Things was a winner of the BAFTA Rocliffe and BBC Writersroom children’s writing competitions and his children’s book Freaks United was shortlisted for the James Reckitt Children’s Book Award. Formerly a social worker, John has an MA in Creative Writing as well as a PhD with a focus on the onscreen fictional depiction of children.

Theatre N16 is a trailblazing London fringe venue, focused on producing and programming top quality new writing and selected existing works. Theatre N16 is proud of their commitment to the welfare and development of creatives, operating under an Equity Fringe Agreement. This promoting and nurturing of talent means that Theatre N16 is a bastion for development within the context of a society in which the arts are increasingly struggling to stay afloat.

 

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company present William Shakespeare’s

HAMLET

• RADA PRESIDENT KENNETH BRANAGH DIRECTS TOM HIDDLESTON IN HAMLET TO FUND RAISE FOR MAJOR CAPITAL APPEAL 
• LIMITED THREE WEEK ENGAGEMENT RUNS 1-23 SEPTEMBER 2017 AT RADA’S JERWOOD VANBRUGH THEATRE
• TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE VIA A BALLOT, WHICH WILL OPEN AT MIDDAY ON TUESDAY 1 AUGUST UNTIL SUNDAY 6 AUGUST AT 6PM AT WWW.RADAHAMLET.COM

Kenneth Branagh’s Olivier Award-winning theatre company will join forces with RADA for a co-production of Hamlet, to support the transformation of RADA’s Chenies Street site in London, further developing the Academy as a world-leader in dramatic arts training.

The production will feature RADA alumnus Tom Hiddleston in the title role and will play a strictly limited three week run at RADA’s 160-seat Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre from 1-23 September 2017.

All funds raised will support the RADA Attenborough Campaign, which aims to raise £20 million, enabling the regeneration of the Academy’s Chenies Street premises.

RADA’s new premises will provide RADA’s first on-site accommodation for students. RADA already supports 70% of students on its core programmes financially, and such new accommodation will further remove financial barriers to training.

The regeneration, which will also include a new library and enhanced archive, will convert the listed Drill Hall to become a flexible, 250 seat public theatre, named the Richard Attenborough Theatre.

The acting company and creative team are made up from members of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company and RADA.  They are Ayesha Antoine (Rosencrantz / Bernarda), Lolita Chakrabarti (Queen Gertrude), Nicholas Farrell (King Claudius), Sean Foley (Polonius / Osric), Tom Hiddleston (Hamlet), Ansu Kabia (King Hamlet / Player King / Gravedigger),Caroline Martin (Horatia), Eleanor de Rohan (Guildastern / Marcella / Priest), Irfan Shamji (Laertes / Player Queen) and Kathryn Wilder (Ophelia). Hamlet will be designed by James Cotterill with lighting design by Paul Pyant (both RADA graduates) and sound design by Paul Arditti and Christopher Reid. Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann are casting directors for the production.

RADA and the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company are also delighted to work with colleagues from many other parts of the industry, as well as current RADA Technical Theatre Arts Students.

To ensure that the ticket release is fair, a ballot will open at midday on 1 August, which can be entered online until 6pm on Sunday 6 August, and by phone from midday on 1 August until 5pm on 5 August (lines are open daily 10am – 5pm). Successful applicants shall be notified by or on 8 August and will then have 48 hours to book their tickets on 9-10 August.

Selected at random, all successful ballot applicants are guaranteed the opportunity to purchase a maximum of two tickets within the allotted 48 hour booking window. Tickets for specific dates however cannot be guaranteed and all dates are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

Purchases will be limited to a maximum of two per person across all performances. No tickets to be sold by third parties and resale of tickets is strictly prohibited. To help prevent the chance of resale, customers will only be able to collect their tickets on the day of the performance (60 mins before the show begins). Bookers must bring relevant documentation to collect their tickets, and photo identification will be required for under-25s bookers to gain access to the auditorium.

Additionally, no returns shall be offered for the production. Consequently there will be neither a returns queue, nor day tickets available to purchase for Hamlet at the RADA box office in person or online.

Twenty percent of tickets will be priced at £15 and are only available to audiences aged 25 and under. A further twenty percent will be priced at £45, with the remaining tickets at £95.

As this is a fundraising event, the decision has been taken to offer no free tickets to media. Any journalist wishing to purchase a ticket will be able to enter the ballot. This is in an attempt to create a level playing field and to raise as much money as possible for the RADA Attenborough Campaign.

Edward Kemp, Director of RADA, said: “We’re thrilled that Kenneth Branagh returns to RADA to work with graduates of the Academy in support of our capital campaign. At RADA our close links with the industry are a vital part of the training, and we’re committed to maintaining these links in an ever-changing industry. This is a wonderful opportunity for actors from our graduating third year, as well as our current technical theatre and stage management students, to work alongside immensely talented professionals – forming a collaboration of artists that brings together a wealth of experience and exuberant young talent.”

Kenneth Branagh said: “I believe Shakespeare and RADA are very good things. This production celebrates both. We bring actors, writers, directors and technicians from last year’s KBTC Garrick season, and team them with RADA graduates past and present, together with artists from the larger creative world to explore Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The play speaks as loudly as ever to our volatile world and we are proud to have Tom Hiddleston lead an exciting group of actors, as he plays the title role for the first time. This work has been in discussion and planning over a period of years. To find its expression at, with, and for RADA, is a privilege.”

Tom Hiddleston said: “Hamlet presents almost limitless possibilities for interpretation. I can’t wait to explore them, with this great cast, at RADA. Kenneth Branagh and I have long talked about working on the play together, and now felt like the right time, at the right place. To be guided through it by him as a director, an expert and a friend, is our great good fortune. The performing arts exist to bring people together, not to break or keep them apart. I hope the funds raised by the production will help RADA continue to provide a wider field of equal opportunity to train actors, stage managers and technical theatre artists, from every background, to a standard of excellence and professionalism. We need to keep the doors open for everyone.”

 

LISTINGS

HAMLET
By William Shakespeare

Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre
Malet Street
London
WC1E 7JN

Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm from 1 – 23 September
Matinees at 2.30pm on 2, 9, 16, 23 September

www.radahamlet.com
Box Office (Cambridge Live) 01223 357 851

Tickets £95, £45 and £15 for under-25s
No credit card or booking fees

Accessible seating is available at all performances.

The run will also include accessible performances, details of which will be announced shortly; patrons are encouraged to provide access requirements when registering for the ticket ballot.

The Wipers Times Q and As – with writers Ian Hislop and Nick Newman

 

What first sparked your interest in The Wipers Times, Ian?

(Hislop) I was presenting a documentary about the First World War and I came across a reference to The Wipers Times and there was a joke quoted from one issue. I followed it up and I could see that it made the most brilliant story which was much too good to be used in a mere documentary.

(Newman) I’d never heard of The Wipers Times but what was so extraordinary about it was that the fact that it was original source material, written on the frontline by troops on active service. What stood out was that it was genuinely funny and that the jokes had survived the test of time. We wanted to revisit the material in some way so we wrote a three page document about how we’d recreate the theatre of war. We put the idea of making a film about The Wipers Times to the BBC and we then heard nothing – for ten years!

 

Why did you have such trouble trying to sell the idea?

(Hislop) Even our wonderful producer David Parfitt thought that nobody was interested in the First World War.

(Newman) David was quite honest about it. In the current climate – this was in 2003 or so, nobody was interested in the subject. Then during the following years, along came Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, War Horse at the National and then the West End and then the Spielberg film. Even David produced Parade’s End which was set at the time of the First World War. Paradoxically this revival of interest in the period worked against us. Who’d want to put on a play or make a film set in World War One when Birdsong and War Horse had been so successful? Then, completely out of the blue, we got a commission to make a drama documentary about The Wipers Times for the BBC as one of the programmes marking the centenary of the war.

 

Do you think that you had such trouble because you were concentrating on a very different aspect of the First World War?

(Newman) That’s exactly right. The whole experience of World War One has been coloured by the poets publishing in the 1920s and the memoirs and dramas written in the 1930s. Audiences had seen things explode before and they were looking for a different experience. What The Wipers Times was doing at the time was putting a smile back on people’s faces.

(Hislop) Sometimes you get the impression that nobody ever laughed during the period between 1914 and 1918. The soldiers fell on The Wipers Times like thirsty men finding water in the desert.

 

How would you describe the material in The Wipers Times?

(Hislop) It’s a very good mix. I’d say that the material written by other ranks lacked the elegance of the pieces submitted by the officers. You get the sense from the images of two very different worlds, of different versions of what was happening. On the face of it, it is all jolly poems and spoofs but it is also very subversive. There is a letter from a reader, asking for advice. Is it permissible, he asks, to shoot a superior officer? He receives the reply that it is, given extenuating circumstances. I feel as if Nick and I are kindred spirits of the editors, Jack Pearson and Fred Roberts. They are our heroes, eking out this wonderful newspaper under incredibly difficult circumstances.

(Newman) The war is treated in a quintessentially British way. There are jokes about the Germans—about the Kaiser’s little Willie (i.e. the Crown Prince) and so on. But there’s no malice in it. If anything the soldiers reserve their malice for their own superior officers and for the pointlessness of it all.

 

You eventually got your film made. Why did you then want to adapt this story for the stage?

(Hislop) All the way through the process, we’d always thought of it as a play.

(Newman) The film got such a fantastic response that we felt that it wasn’t going to represent the end of the story, after all. We’d written our first play, A Bunch of Amateurs, as our first attempt at writing for the stage which had been produced at the Watermill Theatre near Newbury. That had gone down so well that the Watermill told us that if there was anything else we wanted to do, they’d be interested in seeing it. So we suggested joining forces on The Wipers Times.

 

What happened to your two heroes, Fred Roberts and Jack Pearson?

(Newman) During the period after the film came out, we were sent much more material, including a memoir by Roberts. But what had happened to Pearson was a complete mystery.

(Hislop) I was convinced that he’d disappeared but I happened to mention what I was looking for to a member of the amazing team who’d worked on my Who Do You Think You Are? and within a day she’d found Jack. He’d survived the war and worked as a civil engineer. He had travelled out to Argentina on a P&O ship where he’d got married and then settled down.

(Newman) We then heard from Pearson’s granddaughter who sent us a piece he’d written about the experience of Ypres but which was too late for inclusion in the film.

 

How did the families react to the play?

(Hislop) I was the initial contact and I spoke to Roberts’ grandchildren when they saw the play at the Watermill. They told us that we’d got “Pops” off to a tee. Pearson’s granddaughter was very moved. She said that the play helped her gain a better understanding of her grandfather. When as a child she’d ask him about his experience of the war, he joked that he had such long legs, he could easily run away from the Germans.

 

There were a number of other trench journals, apart from The Wipers Times. What made it so special?

(Hislop) It was funnier – and ruder! I have a friend who is a Captain in the Royal Engineers and she brought a party of her sappers to see the show. I was a little worried about how it would go down with the men but she reassured me. She said that the way the guys were represented was exactly how the guys behaved. And that’s the same now.

 

Which injustice has been righted as a result of The Wipers Times?

(Newman) When the film was shown, an email arrived from John Witherow, the editor of The Times, congratulating us. I then took the opportunity to point out to John that neither Pearson nor Roberts had received the proper recognition of an obituary in The Times. A fortnight later we received an e-mail with the brief instruction to look in the next day’s newspaper. And there they were. It had been a travesty of justice that they had been overlooked and now justice had been done. Sometimes satire can do something good.

COMEDY AT LEEDS GRAND THEATRE AND CITY VARIETIES

 

** JOE PASQUALE ** ANDY PARSONS ** PHIL JUPITUS** JON RICHARDSON** DARA Ó BRIAIN

 

In-keeping with their history as reputable comedy venues, Leeds Grand Theatre and City Varieties Music Hall (CVMH) bring several notable names to Leeds in September and announce two new acts for 2018.

September 2017 at CVMH will see Joe Pasquale take to the stage on Saturday the 2^nd in his one-man show, The Devil in Disguise, that apparently ‘defies description’. Andy Parsons urges people to put on their lucky pants and party shoes, and get out for the night to see his show, Peak Bullsh*t, on Wednesday 20^th, and comedian, poet, improviser and TV stalwart Phill Jupitus, will entertain crowds with tales, laughs and diversions on Thursday 28^th. Audiences are encouraged to watch in delight and/or horror as the experienced funny man drags laughs out of the chaos of his own life and the uncertain world that surrounds it in Juplicity.

2018 will see comedy giants Jon Richardson and Dara Ó Briain take to the Leeds Grand Theatre stage.

Jon Richardson, British Comedy Award nominee and star of Live At The Apollo and 8 Out Of 10 Cats, is embarking on a nationwide tour to complain about the state of the world and offer no solutions. Since Jon’s last show he has become a husband and father, seen the UK vote to leave the EU and watched the rise of Donald Trump, all of which leaves him asking one question, why does it seem that no one else alive can correctly load a dishwasher?

 

Jon will be appearing at Leeds Grand Theatre in The Old Man on Sunday 8th April 2018. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday 2^nd August 2017.

 

Dara is one of the most recognisable faces on British TV as host of the hugely successful Mock The Week, Star Gazing Live, Robotwars and Go8Bit. Catch one of the most charismatic, intelligent, fast-talking and downright funny live performers On Sunday 6^th and Monday 7^th May 2018 in his new stand-up show, Voice of Reason. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday 2^nd August 2017.

For more information about all shows, comedy or otherwise, at Leeds Grand Theatre and City Varieties Music Hall visit leedsgrandtheatre.com or call Box Office on 0844 848 2700 / cityvarieties.co.uk or call Box Office on 0113 243 08 08.

DEENA PAYNE AND GEORGE SAMPSON STAR IN TIM FIRTH’S OUR HOUSE

 

Tim Firth’s Olivier Award winning production of Our House, featuring the music of Madness, visits the Lyceum Theatre from Monday 14 – Saturday 19 August starring Emmerdale’s Deena Payne and Britain’s Got Talent winner George Sampson.

Our House tells the story of Joe on the night of his 16^th birthday when takes the girl of his dreams, Sarah, out on their first date.

In an effort to impress her with bravado, Joe breaks into a building site overlooking his home on Casey Street. When the police turn up, a split-second decision forces him to choose between himself and his heart as the story splits in two: one which sees Joe stay to face the music, and the other which sees him flee and leave Sarah to run from the police. As two very different paths unfold before him, the consequences of that choice will change his life forever.

George Sampson plays the local bad boy Reecey. Having won the second series of Britain’s Got Talent with his rendition of Singin’ In The Rain, George has gone on to star in films Street Dance 2and Street Dance 3D and the television series’ Waterloo Road, Mount Pleasant and Emmerdale. He made his stage debut in Into The Hoods.

Deena Payne plays Kath Casey.  Deena is best known for her portrayal of Viv Windsor in ITV’sEmmerdale, a role which she played for 18 years. On stage she has previously appeared in Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls (UK Tour) and the original West End production of They’re Playing Our Song.

Set to a score of Madness hits including It Must Be Love, House of Fun, Baggy Trousers and Our House, this hilarious, high energy musical will have you singing and dancing in the aisles… welcome to the house of fun!

Our House comes to the Lyceum Theatre from Monday 14 – Saturday 19 August. Tickets can be purchased from Sheffield Theatres’ Box Office in-person, by phone on 0114 249 6000 or online at sheffieldtheatres.co.uk and are priced from £14.00.

RENOWNED BALLET STAR

SERGEI POLUNIN PRESENTS

PROJECT POLUNIN

AT THE LONDON COLISEUM

FROM 5 DECEMBER 2017

PUBLIC ON SALE 10:00 WEDNESDAY 2 AUGUST 2017

Ukrainian ballet star Sergei Polunin’s company, Project Polunin, will present a mixed programme of new and revived work at the London Coliseum from 5 to 10 December 2017.  The programme will feature an international cast and creative team, including Polunin himself.  Full casting and details of the programme are to be announced later this year.

At 19, Sergei Polunin was the youngest ever dancer to become a Principal with The Royal Ballet. After four years in the company, he went on to perform in Russia with the Stanislavsky Theatre and Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre.  Earlier this year, Sergei’s story was made the subject of documentary feature film Dancer produced by Gabrielle Tana.  The documentary is book-ended with Sergei’s Take Me To Churchvideo, directed by David LaChapelle, which has now amassed nearly 20 million views.  Later this year, Sergei will be seen in the new Kenneth Branagh film adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, due for release in November.

With Project Polunin, Sergei aims to create new dance and ballet works for both stage and film, through the collaboration between dancers, contemporary artists, musicians and choreographers from all creative backgrounds.  Project Polunin will strive to make dance accessible to people of all ages and incomes, and to inspire, nurture and support young people to be more creative.  

Project Polunin is produced in collaboration with David Banks and Gabrielle Tana.

Website: https://londoncoliseum.org/projectpolunin

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sergeipolunin.dancer

Twitter: @SergeiPolunin_

LISTINGS INFORMATION

5 – 10 December 2017

 

London Coliseum

St Martin’s Lane

London

WC2N 4ES

Performances:  Tuesday – Saturday at 7.30pm, Saturday & Sunday at 2.30pm

Tickets:  from £12.00 (subject to booking fees)

Box Office:  020 7845 9300

King’s Head Theatre 28 July – 26 August.  Reviewed by Claire Roderick

The 35th anniversary production of Kevin Elyot’s first play is a triumph. Even before the action starts, Amanda Mascarenhas’s brilliantly authentic set design whisks you back to the 1980s. Older members of the audience were reminiscing about the magazines and albums on view, and I got a bit miffed at Santa all over again when I saw the amazing Walkman that never turned up on Christmas morning.

It is 1982, and Tony and Greg live together in Kentish Town. They have been together for five years, and have an open relationship, with the unspoken rule that they don’t sleep with the same man twice. When Tony hires actor Robert as a cleaner, their relationship is put to the test.

Replace the discos and bars where Tony and William go cruising with modern social media, and Coming Clean is still topical, with the sexuality of the characters irrelevant to the emotional core of the story. Fidelity and monogamy, love or sexual gratification, domestic bliss or exciting and possibly dangerous encounters – what choices and compromises would you make in the name of love? Elyot’s writing still feels fresh, and even the darkest moments in the play are shot through with wit and warmth.

Adam Spreadbury-Maher’s direction is spot on, with superb sound and light design choices, and brings out the best from a fine cast, with superb timing and chemistry – especially between best mates Tony and William. Lee Knight’s Tony and Elliot Hadley’s William are every girl’s dream GBFs, with Knight keeping Tony likeable and strong despite the hairspray and occasional histrionics in a fine performance. Hadley steals the show as William, revelling in the flirtatious and outrageous role, but allowing the underlying vulnerability to trickle through. Tom Lambert, making his London debut, is suitably wide eyed and seemingly innocent as Robert, and Jason Nwoga is imposing in the difficult role of Greg. At first it is very unclear what Tony sees in the gruff Greg, but Nwoga reveals his softer, almost paternal side with consummate skill.

Coming Clean just works on every level – a fascinating story about relationships with superb writing and acting in a brilliant production that will enthral audiences, whatever their age, gender or sexuality.

Waterloo East Theatre 27 July and Venue 405, Edinburgh 7 – 18 August.  Reviewed by Claire Roderick

Human trafficking is big business, with estimates of 20,000 people a year being trafficked in the UK. Rah Rah Theatre Company’s My Mind Is Free aims to highlight the plight of victims through stories that will make you realise that they could be working in plain sight, in your neighbourhood.

Four people are travelling, hidden, in the back of a van. They don’t know each other, and they don’t know where they are going, or what will happen when they get there. One by one, they tell their story to the audience, each of them having travelled very different paths to get in the van. Beatritz (Emma Miller), a Brazilian mother from the favelas, who signed up with an agency to work as a cleaner in London in order to raise enough money to allow her son a future other than joining a gang; Giang (Mark Ota), a Vietnamese boy whose family’s lives are threatened if he does not work for a gang growing cannabis in the UK; Violeta (Amy Balmforth), a Romanian teenager whose devotion to her seedy boyfriend has led to her being sold to any man who wants her; and Colin (David Sayers), a homeless army veteran suffering from PTSD.

The characters’ stories unfold gently at first, with increasing physical theatre and rising tempo as their jeopardy grows. This is especially effective in Giang’s story, as he runs back to the gang, away from a safe and happy foster home, in fear of the repercussions for his family in Vietnam. Colin’s story is the most harrowing, recreating the IED explosion in Afghanistan where he is trapped watching his friends die around him. His PTSD is portrayed by the rest of the cast flopping limply to the floor around him as he speaks to them – the only thing that stops him thinking about, and seeing, the dead is drink.

Some of the characters’ choices seem naïve on the surface, but their motivations are all believable, and their actions ARE credible if you imagine yourself in their predicament. Violeta’s continuing devotion to her groomer boyfriend, despite all he’d put her through, caused a lot of discussion after the show, but when only one person in your life has shown you what you think is love, a whole lot of therapy is needed to convince you that it’s a toxic relationship.

Jude Spooner’s astute direction keeps the play from straying into melodrama and preaching. This is a worthy production, about a dreadful issue that needs to be tackled, but it is still highly entertaining – admittedly not a laugh a minute, but a thought-provoking, sobering and stimulating evening’s entertainment.