Round-up of news, treats and other interesting things

“Oh please, Mother, make it stop! It's hurting.”
The Exorcist will be unleashed onto the West End stage for the very first time in a uniquely theatrical experience directed by Sean Mathias and adapted for the stage by John Pielmeier.

The Exorcist will play a strictly limited run at the Phoenix Theatre from 20 October 2017 to 10 March 2018. Tickets will go on general sale at 4pm today.


Full casting has been announced for Frantic Assembly and State Theatre Company South Australia’s critically acclaimed Things I Know To Be True ahead of its return to the UK from 27 September 2017.
Original UK cast members, Matthew Barker and Kirsty Oswald, return to reprise their roles as Mark and Rosie respectively. Joining them in the company will be Cate Hamer as Fran, Seline Hizli as Pip, John McArdle as Bob and Arthur Wilson as Ben.

Featuring Frantic Assembly’s celebrated physicality, and co-directed by Frantic Assembly’s Tony and Olivier Award nominated Artistic Director Scott Graham and State Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Geordie Brookman, Andrew Bovell's  Things I Know To Be True is a complex and intense study of the mechanics of a family that is both poetic and brutally frank.

The production will tour to the Oxford Playhouse, The Lowry in Salford, Leicester Curve, Mercury Theatre in Colchester, York Theatre Royal, Chester Storyhouse, Nuffield Southampton, The Lighthouse in Poole and Lyric Hammersmith.



I've not got round to seeing Apologia yet but Joseph Millson's takeover of Offical London Theatre's Instagram at the beginning of the week kinda makes me want to get there tout suite.



Print Room at the Coronet have announced the full cast for the London transfer of Alice Childress’ Trouble in Mind. Following a critically acclaimed run at in the Ustinov Studio in November 2016, Trouble in Mind will run in Notting Hill from 14th September to 14th October 2017, directed by Laurence Boswell with Tanya Moodie in the lead role of Wiletta Mayer
Pip Donaghy returns to the role of Henry alongside Geoff Leesley as Bill. Jonathan Slinger, who recently starred as Willy Wonka in the West End production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, joins the cast to take on the role of Al Manners with Andrew Alexander as Eddie, Ewart James Walters as Forrester, Ncuti Gatwa as John, Faith Alabi as Millie and Daisy Boulton as Judy.

Written by trailblazing American playwright Alice Childress, the production tells the story of a group of African-American actors rehearsing for a 1950s Broadway production in a theatre dominated by white men. By turns comic and dramatic, Childress’s Trouble in Mind was the first play by a black woman to be professionally produced in New York.





The State of Things is a new British musical heading its way over to the Brockley Jack next month and there's a little sneak preview of the music for you in the clip below.

In the run up to their GCSE performance, six teenagers discover the school’s music
course is being cut, and their hopes of future studies are dashed.Set against the backdrop of austerity Britain this funny, feisty and heart-breaking new
musical follows six unlikely friends as they stick two fingers up at The State Of Things. 

The book is by Thomas Attwood, music & lyrics by Elliot Clay, and the original story was done by Thomas Attwood & Elliot Clay, and the show runs from Thursday 7 to Saturday 23 September 2017.



(c) Ellie Kurttz
Olivier and Tony Award-winning actor, Ian McDiarmid will play MP Enoch Powell in Chris Hannan’s searing play, What Shadows. Directed by Roxana Silbert (Artistic Director, Birmingham Repertory Theatre), What Shadows tells the story of Powell’s explosive Rivers of Blood speech, bringing to life the community that inspired it and, 30 years later, its effects on a woman trying to make sense of her life. The production runs 27 Sep – 28 Oct in PARK200.
"I was a storm. I was also a man entirely alone in a storm. There were forces beyond my control and I was one of them."
Oxford academic and daughter of a Caribbean immigrant, Rose Cruickshank wants answers. Enoch's controversial words about immigration shattered her childhood. Rose cannot find inner peace until she understands what led him to make the speech that defined a generation. Will a meeting with the man himself give her the answers she desperately craves?

Director Roxana Silbert says of What Shadows
“As we near the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s explosive ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, the nation finds itself again facing profound and difficult questions about national identity and attitudes to immigration. Chris’s powerful play is a scorching interrogation of prejudices and how a bitterly divided country moves forward in the wake of a crisis. It couldn’t be more necessary.”

The full cast includes:
Ian McDiarmid as Enoch Powell
Nicholas Le Prevost as Clem Jones
Amelia Donkor as Rose Cruickshank & Joyce Cruickshank
Paula Wilcox as Grace Hughes & Marjorie Jones
Waleed Akhtar as Saeed
Ameet Chana as Sultan & Doctor Sharma
Joanne Pearce as Sofia & Pamela


And last up today is the fine-ass new poster (photo by Jay Brooks) for The Seagull, featuring Lesley Sharp at the Lyric Hammersmith from 3rd October.


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