Double Bill: Foxfinder | The Effect
Foxfinder by Dawn King
Director Rafael Solimeno-Harris
Designer Miroslaw Kusz
Cast: Peter Devlin, George Lorimer, Lotte Pearl
“Fear makes people do strange things.”
England is in crisis. Fields are flooded, food is scarce and fear grips the land. Winner of the 2011 Papatango New Writing Prize, Foxfinder follows farmers Judith and Samuel at the brink of desperation. Their fragile existence is upended when William Bloor, a ‘foxfinder’, arrives to investigate a suspected infestation of foxes. As the hunt progresses, William’s presence uncovers more questions than answers…
The Effect by Lucy Prebble
Director Lara Lawman
Designer Alfie Packham
Cast: Ebube Chukwuma, Violet Morris
“People meet each other and fall in love all sorts of ways - doesn't matter what starts it.”
Connie and Tristan are falling for each other fast. But is this rush of love real, or a side effect of a new antidepressant? As two participants confined within a clinical drug trial, their growing intoxication presents the supervising doctors with startling dilemmas. Winner of Best New Play at the 2012 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, The Effect, is a funny and moving examination of love and ethics.
Double Bill: Ballyturk | Wild East
Ballyturk by Enda Walsh
Director Florence Carr-Jones
Designer Bobby Joynes
Cast: Isaac Green, Joshua Hogan, Tyler Pringle
“I thought we knew everything there was to know.”
Two men. One room. Who are they? Where are they? And what lies beyond these walls? A gut-wrenchingly funny, absurd, and deeply human play from acclaimed Irish playwright Enda Walsh, Ballyturk is an exploration of how two men’s lives unravel when they realise death has entered the room.
Wild East by April De Angelis
Director Chris Sims
Designer Miranda Cattermole
Cast: Tom Brace-Jenkins, Ellie Carnaby, Tamzin Khan
“Something’s coming…”
Frank's future hinges on this job interview, which could be his ticket back to the country he loves. But he has no idea who is sitting across the table from him, and how his ambitions are about to collide headlong with theirs. April de Angelis' "apocalyptically haywire comedy”
(Variety) explores power, spirituality, and just how far we will go in pursuit of what we want.
Double Bill: Deposit | Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.
Deposit by Matt Hartley
Director Amy Iles
Designer Katie Evans
Cast: Sunny Chung, Kieran Devine, Oscar Gough, Molly Watton Williams
"We've become savages, trampling over each other for a tiny bit of grass!"
Rachel and Ben want to buy their own place; as do their friends, Melanie and Sam. But with rising rental costs, cost-of-living crises and stagnant pay structures, saving for a deposit seems impossible. The solution? Sharing a one-bed flat between the four of them. But with
paper thin walls and space growing sparser by the day, which will they sacrifice first – the friendship, the relationship or the dream of buying their own property?
An all-too relatable black comedy about 'Generation Rent' and lengths they will go to to get that first step on the property ladder.
Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again by Alice Birch
Director Ella Strauss
Designer Lillyanna Bryan
Cast: Emaan Durrani, Sam Grove, Emily Hurst, Spike Maxwell
“Act appropriately. Don't break the rules. Just behave.”
Spoiler alert: This play does none of the above. Alice Birch exposes and obliterates the scripts we’re told to follow in this George Devine award-winning play, described by the Daily Telegraph as "a cluster-bomb of subversion". Revolt is a series of intimate, sharp and darkly funny vignettes where language, behaviour and power collide, grieving the inherited violence that shapes womanhood.
Double Bill: Splendour | This Is Living
Splendour by Abi Morgan
Director Imogen Lilley
Designer Ryan Webster
Cast: Sasha McCabe, Lili Mohammad, Tesni Richards, Maiya Louise Thapar
“Tell her outside of history she is nothing... A parasite... I am history... I know what I leave behind.”
Inside an opulent drawing room of a Presidential Palace, four women are waiting on a dictator. Kathryn, a photojournalist here to take his portrait, Micheleine, the dictator's wife, her best friend Genevieve, and Gilma, a kleptomaniac interpreter. As the minutes tick by and a revolution seizes the city outside, the women must turn to each other whilst everything else falls apart.
This Is Living by Liam Borrett
Director Julie Shelton
Designer Finn O’Grady
Cast: Ellie Spooner, George Usher
“Well it can’t have been me, can it?”
Alice and Michael met six years ago. Three years later their daughter Lily was born. Now, in a meadow, just past midnight, they're having an argument - Alice is cold and tired, and Michael won't stop telling her that she died twelve hours ago. Liam Borrett’s debut is a poignant, honest story that “finds humour in unexpected places” (The Reviews Hub), exploring love, loss and what it really means to say goodbye.