Five new plays in two cities in three months, all comedies and all from award winning writers and artists.
In Plymouth we are again working with award winning Told by an Idiot on a new take of Napoleon Disrobed. February brings Clockwork Canaries, a new play by Christopher William Hill, children’s author and writer of UK Theatre Award-winning Mr Holgado. Then in March we bring you 49 Donkeys Hanged by Carl Grose, the writer of the Kneehigh’s five star reviewed The Tin Drum, Grand Guignol (Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2014) and Horse Piss for Blood (Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2012).
This January we also have two TRP productions in London at The Southwark Playhouse with Glenn Waldron’s The Here and This and Now and Mikhail Drunenkov’s The War Has Not Yet Started. Free tickets for the previews of these London shows are available for West Country residents.
.
The Here And This And Now
Produced by
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Written by
Glenn Waldron
An office away-day. A newly recruited sales team for a pharmaceutical company learns the ropes. But does their work really make a difference? What exactly is the drug they are selling? Change is swiftly coming and they are asking all the wrong questions…
Directed by Simon Stokes, science and civilisation collide in Glenn Waldron’s darkly funny play. Fiendishly original, The Here and This and Now interrogates office workplace culture and the cataclysmic consequences of antibiotic resistance.
Playing in repertoire with The War Has Not Yet Started.
Glenn Waldron in another life, the feted editor of i-D magazine, has now written two plays for TRP. His previous play, Natives was also at Southwark Playhouse.
Simon Stokes is Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Plymouth. He was an Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre in the 70’s and 80’s subsequently directing in the West End, across the UK, in Europe and in America. Since he has been at Plymouth the Theatre has won, or been nominated for, over 30 major awards for producing new plays.
Performances
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Thursday 09 > Saturday 25 March 2017
Southwark Playhouse
Wednesday 10 January > Saturday 10 February 2018
The War Has Not Yet Started
Produced by
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Written by
Mikhail Durnenkov
In twelve twisted parables for the modern age, Durnenkov taps into the fears and strangeness of our daily lives – sexual gamesmanship, what to do with ageing parents, those lying politicians, tensions at the airport, those lying journalists, infidelity and the absurdity implant.
Playing in repertoire with The Here and This and Now.
Mikhail Durnenkov is a major stage, screen and television talent based in Moscow, his incisive eye often piercing the malaise of Russian society. His play, The Drunks, written with his brother, was produced by the RSC in 2009.
A funny, eye-opening & often surreal dark comedy about everyday people fighting everyday wars, The War Has Not Yet Started is to be directed by Gordon Anderson, an award-winning television and theatre director. He was Artistic Director of ATC from 2001 to 2006, co-founded the League of Gentlemen comedy group, and directed many celebrated comedy series including Lovesick, The Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat, Shameless, The Catherine Tate Show, Rotters, and Hoff the Record, starring David Hasselhoff
Performances
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Thursday 12 > Saturday 28 May 2016
Southwark Playhouse
Wednesday 17 January > Saturday 10 February 2018
Napoleon Disrobed
By Told by an Idiot
Produced by Told by an Idiot, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Arcola Theatre
One of the UK’s most unique theatre companies creates this poignantly moving and wryly humorous re-imagining of the final years of Napoleon Bonaparte. Using their trademark comic physicality Told by an Idiot discover the absurdity of trying to retrieve time, and glory. An irreverent and hugely playful show exploring what it is to lose immense power but gain personal freedom; to transition from one identity to another, and to lose public face.
Following their collaboration on the smash-hit My Perfect Mind (‘there’s nothing quite like it… wild and funny with a serious core’ ★★★★ The Times) Told by an Idiot Artistic Director Paul Hunter will take the role of Napoleon under the direction of award-winning actor and director Kathryn Hunter.
Theatre Royal Plymouth
25th Jan > 10 Feb 2018
Arcola Theatre, London
14th Feb > 10th March 2018
Clockwork Canaries
Produced by
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Written by
Christopher William Hill
It is an ill-omened day when Tatiana Dressler pulls a drowning cat from the surging waters of the River Schwartz.
Tatiana’s father, a struggling inventor, has designs on the unfortunate feline, naming the cat Count Frederick Sebastian and setting to work on an ingenious contraption to humanise the creature. The cat is of a murderous disposition, developing a taste for a neighbour’s prized canaries – but canary slaughter is not the only suspicious activity being investigated at the Dressler residence. Death-fixated Tatiana fears the worst is just around the corner.
Full of sinister secrets, improbable inventions and murderous mayhem, this blood-thirsty comedy comes from the author of the UK Theatre Award-winning Mister Holgado.
Performances
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Thursday 22 February > Saturday 10 March 2018
49 Donkeys Hanged
Produced by
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Written by
Carl Grose
There’s summin strange goin’ up down Bosanko Farm…
Stanley Bray is hanging donkeys. This is odd behaviour. Even for Ventongimps.
He can’t stop his bizarre addiction until he understands why. Until then, he must keep his house-bound wife Joy in the dark, and prying villagers off his land. Easier said than done when Slaughterhouse Sally comes calling, Grizzler’s pasties in hand, determined to let bygones be bygones…
But when Bray discovers the reason behind his actions lie with a playwright called Carl Grose, things take a very strange turn indeed…
A dark, surreal new comedy from the writer of Grand Guignol and Horse Piss For Blood.
Performances
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Thursday 22 March > Saturday 07 April 2018