Tricycle Theatre Announce New Season

With The Father enjoying a sell-out run at the Tricycle, and her latest production due to open at the National Theatre, Artistic Director of the Tricycle, Indhu Rubasingham, today announces the company’s new season.

The season opens with a month of comedy – the return of the brilliant voices of Mark Thomasand Sean Hughes, with the Tricycle debut of rising talent Shazia Mirza. These performances are complemented by a short run of Ravi and Asha Jain’s A Brimful of Asha, fresh from a world tour.

The centrepiece of the season is the world première of A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes – a new adaptation of Molière’s Tartuffe. This wicked comedy sees Rubasingham continue her collaboration with the award-winning American playwright Marcus Gardley following the success of The House That Will Not Stand in 2014.

This Christmas, the team behind the award-winning The 39 Steps bring their production of Ben Hur, based on General Lew Wallace’s timeless classic, to the Tricycle stage. Also at Christmas Tamsin Waley-Cohen returns with her candlelit classical music concerts.

Also announced today is the Tricycle’s new writer development programme – NW6. Over the coming year, NW6 will support five writers – Hassan Abdulrazzak, Zodwa Nyoni, Chino Odimba, Sam Potter and Francis Turnly – to develop their long-term careers and creativity, helping them to progress onto larger stages.

Indhu Rubasingham said today, “I am thrilled to announce the Tricycle’s new season – a combination of brilliant voices, some new, and some returning. We start with comedy – Mark Thomas, Sean Hughes and Shazia Mirza in their own shows, as well as Ravi and Asha Jain’s A Brimful of Asha.

“I am very happy to be working again with playwright Marcus Gardley on A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes – a wickedly original take on Molière’s Tartuffe, and at Christmas, we look forward to the team behind The 39 Steps producing their own special version of Ben Hur.

“We are also proud to launch our new writer’s development programme – NW6, which will see five selected writers work with us over the coming year. This is a vital programme for us here at the Tricycle, because as well as providing a home for these talented writers and supporting the next stage of their careers, we will also be inspired and influenced by them.”

Presented by Lakin McCarthy

Bravo Figaro! is the true tale of a self-employed builder’s love of opera, his battle with degenerative illness and how to put opera on in a bungalow in Bournemouth.

It sees comedian and writer Mark Thomas bring to the stage a poignant and personal tale about his relationship with his father, which plunders the operatic themes of family, love, death and art. Thomas’s father was a self-employed builder with a passion for Verdi, Rossini, Puccini and Mozart. But when he is diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, his life begins to crumble. As his father’s illness progresses, Thomas stages a concert to try to connect with him through music.

Award-winning comedian Mark Thomas returns to the Tricycle Theatre. This follows a string of other performances at the venue in recent years, including Cuckooed, The Manifesto and Extreme Rambling (Walking the Wall). For television, his work includes Saturday Zoo and The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, as well as several Dispatches – all for Channel Four.

Eves: 7.30pm; Sat mat: 3pm

Wed & Thu: £18 (£15 conc)
Fri + Sat: £22 (£18 conc)
Sat matinee: £15

Age guideline 14+

Evenings: Mark Thomas Warm up + Bravo Figaro!
Matinee: Bravo Figaro!

The Tricycle Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions present

A Why Not Theatre production

Written and performed by Ravi and Asha Jain

8 – 19 September

Directed by Ravi Jain; Set Design by Julie Fox

Lighting and Video Design by Beth Kates (Playground Studios)

Asha Jain

In this hilarious show from Ravi Jain, the director of Complicite Creative Learning’s Like Mother, Like Daughter, real life mother and son Asha and Ravi Jain share the stage to tell this true story of generational and cultural clash.

When Ravi takes a trip to India, his parents decide it is the perfect time to introduce him to potential brides. Ravi is not sold on the idea of getting married — at least not yet — but Asha fears that time is running out.

A Brimful of Asha comes to the UK following a world tour, which has included sell-out runs in theatres across North America.

Ravi Jain is a multi-award-winning actor, director, producer, educator, arts-activist and Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre. His acting credits include the Dora Award-winning SPENT(Theatre Smith-Gilmour/Why Not Theatre/TheatreRUN) and A Brimful of Asha (Why Not Theatre/Tarragon). He was the 2010 Urjo Kareda Resident Artist at Tarragon when he began to develop A Brimful of Asha. His company was in residence at the Theatre Centre when he developed I’m So Close (winner of Spotlight Award at SummerWorks 2009, and toured to Dublin and Vancouver). His directing credits for Why Not include The Prince Hamlet, I’m So Close, A Brimful of Asha, Greenland (winner of NOW Audience Choice Award and Best Production SummerWorks ’09), Iceland (winner of NOW Audience Choice Award and Best New Play SummerWorks ’12). Currently, he is among 12 resident artists at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts and was a member of the DiverseCity Fellows program, which aims to diversify leadership across sectors in Toronto. He is engaged in many different arts organizations and creations across the city and the globe, including the programming committee for the Daniels Spectrum as well as the Artist Advisory Committee for ArtReach Toronto. He was recently awarded the 2012 Pauline McGibbon Award and is the Artistic Director-in-Residence at the Theatre Centre for 2013.

Asha Jain grew up in New Delhi, India. Upon completion of her Master’s Degree, she married in 1974, which led to her immigration to Canada. While supporting her husband Ramesh in the founding of his own business, she raised two boys, Anurag and Ravi, as well as becoming an accomplished comedic actor.

Mon – Sat at 7.30pm; Sat mat at 3pm

Tickets: £14 – £20 (£12 – £18 conc)

Suitable for ages 14+

22, 23, 29 & 30 September

Award-winning comedian Sean Hughes returns to the Tricycle with a new show, Mumbo Jumbo. Throughout his life Sean has been battling to stay on the right side of sanity. This is because in middle age he has realised that the two sides of his brain are in constant conflict. There is common sense against mumbo jumbo and mumbo jumbo seems to have the upper hand. The show consists of stories including being serenaded at the break of dawn by Robert Smith, trekking mountain gorillas in Rwanda and coming to the conclusion that he will never have a proper conversation with his dear mum.  There will be a few poems and a 3-minute musical about ageing too.

The multi-talented Sean Hughes has many TV and radio credits to his name including writing and starring in the cult favourite Sean’s Show (Channel 4), and a long stint as team captain on Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC2). As an actor he has had numerous starring roles in TV shows such as The Last Detective, he appeared  in Coronation Street as Eileen’s love interest Pat Stanaway, Alan Parker’s film The Commitments, the film adaptation of Spike Milligan’s Puckoonand performed on the West End stage in As You Like It with Sienna Miller. He has also hosted his own show on BBC 6 Music. He has written two collections of prose and poetry including, Sean’s Book. He also wrote two critically acclaimed best-selling novels The Detainees and It’s What He Would Have Wanted. In 2013, Hughes started a podcast Off the Radar.

Eves at 7.30pm

Tickets: £20/£18

Suitable for ages 15+

24, 25, 26 September & 1, 2, 3 October

My mum can’t find me anyone to marry. My friend Matthew who is a gay, politically correct social worker, looks at me with great concern and says, “You’re not thinking of becoming a Jihadi Bride are you?” Would I do that? I mean the weather in Britain isn’t great, and the sunsets and landscape in Syria are mean to be very romantic… I’d get a husband, wouldn’t have to work, and would definitely get a place in heaven. Yes I’d miss my hair straighteners and hot pants, but that’s a small price to pay.

Shazia Mirza is an award-winning comedian and columnist. She has performed her stand-up shows across the world – from the Edinburgh Fringe to Texas, USA to Dubai and Kosovo. She has performed extensively across Europe. Her shows include The Last Temptation of Shazia Mirza and Portrait Of Shazia Mirza. She also appeared in The Vagina Monologues (Royal Albert Hall). She has appeared on Have I Got News For You, a regular panellist on The Wright Stuff, The World Stands Up, and Last Comic Standing. She was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and won the GG2 Young Achiever of the Year Award and also Woman of the Year.  She has written

for the Guardian for many years and currently has a new weekly column in their Weekend magazine entitled Diary of a Disappointing Daughter.

Performances at 7.30pm

Tickets: £20/£18

Age Guidance: 15+

By Marcus Gardley

8 October – 14 November

Directed by Indhu Rubasingham; Designed by Tom Piper; Lighting Design by Paul Anderson

Multi-award winning American playwright Marcus Gardley returns to the Tricycle Theatre with the world première of A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes, following the critically-acclaimed The House That Will Not Stand in 2014. This fresh adaptation of Molière’s Tartuffe is a wicked new comedy set in a world of millionaires and mega-churches that rocks the foundations of trust, faith and redemption.

Given just days to live, multi-millionaire Archibald Organdy rejects costly experimental treatment and opts to face his end surrounded by his loving family. His fate sealed, Archibald awaits his day of reckoning. But things could be about to change.

Arriving in Atlanta from the deep, deep South, flamboyant Archbishop Tardimus Toof, a prophet, preacher and part-time masseur promises to absolve Archibald’s sins and heal his disease. But his family suspect there’s more to this devout healer than faith, virtue and snakeskin shoes…

Marcus Gardley was awarded the 2011 PEN/Laura Pels Award for a Mid-Career Playwright. His work for the stage includes The House That Will Not Stand, Every Tongue Confess, On The Levee, And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, (L)imitations of Life and like sun fallin’ in the mouth. He is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Award, a Kesselring Honor, the Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Award, the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship, and the ASCAP Cole Porter Award.

Indhu Rubasingham, Artistic Director of the Tricycle Theatre, directs. For the company, her work includes Multitudes, The House That Will Not Stand, Handbagged (also Vaudeville Theatre – Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre), Red Velvet (also New York – Evening Standard Award and Critics’ Circle Award), Paper Dolls, Women, Power And Politics, Stones In His Pockets, Detaining Justice, The Great Game: Afghanistan, Fabulation, and Starstruck. Her other theatre work includes The Motherf**ker With the Hat, The Waiting Room (National Theatre),  Belong, Disconnect, Free Outgoing, Lift Off, Clubland, The Crutch, Sugar Mummies (Royal Court), Ruined (Almeida Theatre), Yellowman, Anna In The Tropics(Hampstead Theatre), The Ramayana (National Theatre/ Birmingham Rep), and Secret Rapture, The Misanthrope, Romeo and Juliet (Chichester Festival Theatre). In 2012 Rubasingham was awarded the Arts & Culture Award at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards for ‘astounding achievements in theatre’. She also received the Carlton Multi-Cultural Achievement Award for Performing Arts and in 2010 she jointly received the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award for The Great Game: Afghanistan.  She was previously Associate Director of the Gate Theatre, Birmingham Rep and the Young Vic.

Eves: 7.30pm; Mats: Wed 2pm (from 21 October), Sat 3pm (from 17 October)

Audio Described performance; Thursday 5th November at 7.30pm, with a touch tour at 6.00pm

Captioned performance: Tuesday 10 November, 7.30pm

Pricing: £12 – £28

Concessions available on all performances

£10 Trike Tickets for under 26s

Suitable for ages 14+

Written by Patrick Barlow

Based on the novel by General ‘Lew’ Wallace   

19 November 2015 – 9 January 2016

Directed by Tim Carroll

They said it was unachievable!

They said it couldn’t be done!

But now the team behind the Olivier and Tony Award-winning comedy The 39 Steps are back with a sensational, awe-inspiring and unforgettable staging of General Lew Wallace’s timeless classic Ben Hur.

The greatest book ever penned is brought to the stage by a towering team of just four actors, turning the Tricycle stage into one of the most authentic versions of ancient Rome ever seen. Complete with stunning combat (featuring the latest 3D technology), a 103% bona fide chariot race (with REAL CHARIOTS), an authentic sea battle (with REAL WATER) and a decadent and UNEXPURGATED Roman orgy (suitable for all ages), Ben Hur is the perfect winter tonicguaranteed to stir your very soul.

Patrick Barlow returns to the Tricycle where his adaptation of The 39 Steps opened in 2006 and in the same year transferred to the Criterion Theatre where it plays to this day. In 2007, it transferred to Broadway and has since played in over thirty-nine countries world-wide. He won an Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, while in the United States, he co-won the Drama Desk Award and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. It won a Molière Award for Best Comedy in France, a Helpmann award for Best Comedy in Australia. Last year he won the accolade of being the most performed playwright in America. His other recent theatre writing includes a five-person Christmas Carol which opened off-Broadway in November 2013. Barlow is perhaps most renowned for his two-man National Theatre of Brent, which he created in 1980, and in which he plays Artistic Director and Chief Executive Desmond Olivier Dingle. The company’s legendary two-man epics have been performed on stage, radio and television and include The Charge of the Light Brigade, Zulu! The Black Hole of Calcutta, Wagner’s Ring Cycle, The Messiah, The Wonder of Sex, French Revolution!, Massive Landmarks of the Twentieth Century, The Complete and Utter History of the Mona Lisa, The Charles and Diana Story, The Arts and How They was Done, Iconic Icons and most recently, Giant Ladies Who Changed the World. They have won two Sonys, a Premier Ondas and New York Festival Award for Best Comedy. His other writing for film and television includes The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Christopher Columbus, Queen of the East, The Judgment of Paris, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Van Gogh and The Young Visiters.

Tim Carroll began his career with the English Shakespeare Company before becoming Associate Director at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter. Since 1995 he has directed plays for theatres all over Britain, including Engaged (Orange Tree, Richmond), Gasping (Gateway Theatre, Chester) and Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Salisbury Playhouse). As Associate Director of Shakespeare’s Globe in London, his work includes Peter Oswald’s Augustine’s Oak, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Macbeth, Richard II (winner of the Jujamcyn Award), Dido, Queen of Carthage, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and The Storm. In 2002 he directed The Golden Assand Twelfth Night – the latter won Evening Standard, Time Out, Critics’ Circle and Olivier Awards, and in 2003 was revived for a record-breaking run at the Globe, followed by a tour of the United States. In 2012, he returned to Shakespeare’s Globe to direct Richard III and Twelfth Night. The two shows then transferred to the West End for a record-breaking run at the Apollo, and went on in 2013/14 to play at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway, where they also broke box-office records, as well as winning Outer Critics’ Circle, Drama Desk and Tony awards. His other work spans the world, The Tempest (Teatro Sao Luiz), Peer Gynt (Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lincoln Center, Royal Festival Hall, Middle Temple Hall, and also broadcast on BBC TV and radio), The Merchant of Venice (RSC), The Mystae(Hampstead Theatre), King John (Stratford Festival, Ontario), as well as work for his own company The Factory.

Eves: 7.30pm; Matinees: Wed 2pm (from 2 Dec), Sat 3pm (from 28 Nov)

Captioned performance:  Monday 21 December, 7.30pm

Audio Described performance: Tuesday 5th January, 7.30pm with a touch tour at 6pm

Tickets: £12 – £28

Concessions available for all performances

£10 Trike Tickets for under 26s. See website for details.

20 December at 3pm & 7pm

Having programmed a series of atmospheric Sunday night concerts at the Tricycle in 2012, 2013, 2014 and most recently in 2015 to complement the runs of The Father and La Traviata, violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen returns with another intimate evening of chamber music. Here, under candlelight, Waley-Cohen and friends present some of the greatest and most enduring music ever written.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen performs as a soloist with orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of St John’s, London Concert Orchestra and London Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of the Swan, and the Brighton Philharmonic, under conductors including Andrew Litton, Jose Serebrier, Shlomo Mintz and Nicolae Moldoveanu. She has played at the Cadogan, Queen Elizabeth and Barbican halls in London, Symphony Hall Birmingham, Bridgewater Hall Manchester, and in venues across the UK and the Continent.

Tickets: £16, £10, £8

Concessions available on all performances

4 October at 7.30pm

Hosted by BBC Radio London’s Eddie Nestor (The Real McCoy, Paddington The Movie), introducing former Brixton bus driver turned people’s comedy champion Slim, the multilingual & twisted Scottish Londoner Maureen Younger and newcomer going places Shabba.

1 November at 7.30pm

Sardonic comedian turned Teletubbie John Simmit (aka Dipsy) introduces comedy’s don Curtis Walker, award-winning new girl Thanyia Moore and Tottenham geezer Kevin J.

£15/£12 concession

Early bird: £10 book before 20 Sep and quote EARLYBIRD

Age Guidance: 16+

Also announced today is the Tricycle’s new writer development programme – NW6.

Over the coming year, NW6 will support five writers to develop their long-term careers and creativity, helping them to progress onto larger stages. Each of the chosen writers – Hassan Abdulrazzak, Zodwa Nyoni, Chino Odimba, Sam Potter and Francis Turnly (supported through the Channel 4 Playwrights’ scheme)- will be challenged to write an ambitious new play, benefit from professional workshops and the crucial financial support they need to write, bridging the mid-career gap between studio theatres and larger stages such as the company’s 232-seat theatre.

Through scale of opportunity, commitment to talent and telling human stories without borders, NW6 will ensure a rich range of perspectives in British drama now, and for the future.

269 Kilburn High Road, London NW6 7JR

Box office: 020 7328 1000
www.tricycle.co.uk

Registered Disabled, Individual Students, Registered Unemployed and Brent Residents, £2 off Full Price in all zones.

Over 60s: £2 off matinees for selected shows.

Trike is the Tricycle Theatre’s free membership scheme for under 26s. Trike members have access to £10 theatre tickets available on a great range of productions; £5 Cinema tickets Mon – Thurs for standard film screenings and invitations to exclusive member events. (ID will be required on collection. Advanced booking only. Limited offer. Subject to availability)