Agatha Christie’s thriller Love From a Stranger, a new adaptation of E M Forster’s A Passage to India, a musical version of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant and the first stage adaptation of Joe Simpson’s memoir Touching the Void are some of the home-grown productions for 2018 at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate.
The season on the Royal stage starts with A Passage to India created by ensemble company simple8. It is adapted by Simon Dormandy who also directs with Sebastian Armesto. It runs in Northampton from Thursday 11 until Saturday 20 January.
This is followed by Agatha Christie and Frank Vosper’s “edge-of-your-seat thriller” Love From a Stranger. It runs from 23 February until 17 March. It will be directed by Lucy Bailey who was at the helm of Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight on the Royal stage in 2015.
There will be a limited run of Guy Chambers’s new folk musical The Selfish Giant, adapted from Wilde’s children’s novel, from 4 until 7 April.
David Greig’s adaptation of Touching the Void tells of Joe Simpson’s mental battle as he teeters on the brink of death and despair in a mountain crevasse from which he cannot possibly climb to safety. It runs from 9 until 20 October.
Touring drama includes the comedy The Play That Goes Wrong which opens its latest tour in Northampton from 4 until 7 January; Selladoor Productions’ Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck from 5 until 10 February; the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, featuring Paapa Essiedu, from 27 February until 3 March; David Walliams’s Awful Auntie from 10 until 14 April; Kneehigh’s tour of Daniel Jamieson’s The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, directed by Emma Rice, from 23 until 28 April; Joe Pasquale as Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em from 30 April until 5 May; Yasmina Reza’s Art, with Nigel Havers, Denis Lawson and Stephen Tompkinson, from 14 until 19 May; and the return of the Wardrobe Ensemble’s Education Education Education from 28 May until 2 June.
Musicals include Mamma Mia! from 23 January until 3 February; Jeff Pope’s Cilla the Musical from 20 until 24 February; Shrek the Musical from 14 until 25 March; Sting’s The Last Ship from 24 until 28 April; Tim Firth’s The Band, featuring the music of Take That, from 29 May until 9 June; and Titanic the Musical from 25 until 30 June.