Watford Palace Theatre presents
Absurd Person Singular
By Alan Ayckbourn
Director: Brigid Larmour; Assistant Director: Vedi Roy; Composer: Anne Dudley
Designer: Amy Jane Cook; Lighting Designer: Jamie Platt; Sound Designer: Roger Dudley
7 – 30 March 2019
Watford Palace Theatre todayannounces full cast for Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular. Joining the previously announced Terence Frisch (Sidney) and Jill McAusland (Jane) are Oliver Longstaff (Geoffrey), Emily Tucker (Eva), Sarah Quist (Marion) and Walter van Dyk (Ronald). The production, directed by Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Watford Palace Theatre, Brigid Larmour, opens on 12 March, with previews from 7 March and runs until 30 March.
It’s Britain on the make in 1971 and backstage at the party, three marriages are in the pressure cooker.
Sidney wants to play party games, but he also needs a loan from Ronald. Marion wants to go home, but definitely needs another drink. Eva would (literally) rather be dead, but Geoffrey’s certain she’ll be happier once he’s left her. Meanwhile Jane’s still in her Marigolds, desperately trying to keep the kitchen ship-shape. A hilarious vintage gem from a master of comedy.
Alan Ayckbourn is a playwright and theatre director who has written 82 plays – his latest, Better Off Dead, premiered in September 2018 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre (SJT). His credits include Relatively Speaking, How The Other Half Loves, The Norman Conquests, Season’s Greetings, Absurd Person Singular and Woman in Mind.His Inducted into American Theatre’s Hall of Fame, a recipient of the Critics’ Circle Award for Services to the Arts, he became the first British playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre.
Terence Frisch returns toWatford Palace Theatre to play Sidney having appeared as the Dame in eight pantomimes for the company. His other credits includeJoy Bubbles (The Other Palace), SeptimusBeanandHisAmazingMachine (Unicorn Theatre), AndyCappThe Musical (Finborough Theatre), Oysters, Faulty Towers – The Dining Experience(UK tour), Women of Troy, The Ring Cycle Plays(The Scoop),TheManualOracle (The Yard Theatre), Jerusalem(Royal Court Theatre), TheLordofthe Rings (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe) and The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek (Royal Exchange Theatre); and for film,Hugo.
Oliver Longstaff returnsto Watford Palace Theatre to play Geoffrey – he previously appeared in Sleeping Beauty. Other theatre credits include Crime (Bezna Theatre), Surgeon to the Dead and The Academy of Melancholy (Old Operating Theatre, Southwark); and for television, 1Life.
Jill McAusland returns toWatford Palace Theatre to play Jane, having previously appeared in seven pantomimes for the company.Her other theatre credits include The Moor, Correspondence (Old Red Lion), The Lost Boy (Theatre in the Quarter), Miniaturists 50: Alcatraz (Arcola Theatre), Out of the Cage (Park Theatre),Ghost Town (Pilot Theatre/York Theatre Royal), Jumpy (Royal Court Theatre /Duke of York’s Theatre), Alice in Wonderland (Royal & Derngate Northampton) and The Conspirators (Orange Tree Theatre); and for television,Call the Midwife and Getting Back with Dave Benson Phillips.
Emily Tucker returns to the company to play Eva – she previously appeared in Much Ado About Nothing. Other theatre credits include Head-Rot Holiday (The Hope Theatre), Fortune’s Fool (The Old Vic), A Warsaw Melody (Arcola Theatre), Suddenly Last Summer, Lady of the Lake, Fallen Angels (Theatre by the Lake), Shiver – The Tempest (National Theatre Studio), The Man Who Pays the Piper, The Stepmother (Orange Tree Theatre), After the Ball (The Gatehouse), As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden) andThe Importance of Being Earnest (Courtyard Theatre). Her television credits include Not Safe for Work; and for film, Heretiks and The Seasoning House.
Sarah Quist plays Marion. Her theatre credits include King Lear (Royal Exchange Theatre), A Mad World My Masters, Hecuba, Alice in Wonderland (RSC), The Wind in the Willows, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Grosvenor Park), The Amen Corner (National Theatre), Bacchae (National Theatre of Scotland), The Tempest (UK tour), Wimbledon (Tristan Bates Theatre), Come Out Eli (Arcola Theatre/Battersea Arts Centre), Romeo and Juliet(Southwark Playhouse) and Five Buddies in a Box (Savoy Theatre). Her television credits include Stella.
Walter van Dyk returnsto Watford Palace Theatre to play Ronald – he previously appeared in Arms and the Man, Equally Divided, Sleeping Beauty and Dick Whittington. Other theatre credits includeA Flea in Her Ear(The Old Vic), Enter the Guardsman (Donmar Warehouse), Two Gentlemen of Verona, High Society, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), O Moon of Alabama: A Kurt Weill Cabaret (Young Vic), Insufficiency (Riverside Studios), The Importance Of Being Earnest (Rose Theatre Kingston), The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (Salisbury Playhouse), The Boatswain’s Mate (Finborough Theatre), Sweeney Todd (Theatr Clwyd) and What Now Little Man? (Greenwich Theatre); and for film, The Carrier, The Eagle, Incognito and Abbot’s Approach.
Brigid Larmour is Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Watford Palace Theatre. Her credits for the company include Much Ado About Nothing, Coming Up, Jefferson’s Garden, Love Me Do andWatch, Fourteen, Perfect Match, We That Are Left and Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian, Equally Divided, Our Father, My Mother Said I Never Should, Time of My Life, Absent Friends,As You Like It, Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Dick Whittington. From 1998 to 2006 she was Artistic Director of West End company Act Productions, and adviser to BBC4 Plays. From 1993 to 1998 she directed a series of promenade Shakespeare’s Shakespeare Unplugged, for RNT Education. From 1989 to 1994 she was Artistic Director of Contact Theatre, Manchester, commissioning the first British plays responding to the rave scene (Excess/XS), and the implications of virtual reality (Strange Attractors, a multimedia promenade production, by Manchester poet Kevin Fegan). She trained at the RSC, and as a studio director at Granada TV.
Watford Palace Theatre Listings
20 Clarendon Rd, Watford WD17 1JZ
Absurd Person Singular
7 – 30 March 2019
https://watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk
Box Office: 01923 225671
Age: 11+