Northern Stage has announced its season from September to December 2016, featuring one solely in-house production, one co-production, and visiting dance productions and theatre companies.
The first in-house show of the season is The Season Ticket, a co-production with Pilot Theatre. It’s an update on the story of the film Purely Belter (FilmFour). Newcastle writer Lee Mattinson adapts Jonathan Tulloch’s novel for the stage and the play will be directed by Pilot Theatre’s Associate Director Katie Posner.
Mattinson’s work includes Chalet Lines for Live Theatre/Bush Theatre, Snap (Young Vic), Gary Lineker Is Gay (Paines Plough) as well as Me and Cilla for BBC Radio 3 (which started life as a stage play at Live Theatre) and Coronation Street for ITV.
“Working on The Season Ticket has been as much of a rollercoaster as a football season,” said Mattison, “and it’s the first time I’ve adapted a novel for the stage. With a text so rich in landscape and character, the struggle was deciding what to leave out, whilst making it a piece of theatre in and of itself.
“The novel crackles with such heartfelt dialogue and hopeful determination that central characters Gerry and Sewell’s world was already an incredibly tactile one, an environment that it was a gift to disappear into. I’m a huge fan of its previous incarnation, Purely Belter, and, hopefully, the play is not only a re-telling of this Geordie institution but also a fresh take on what it means to belong in 2016.”
The Season Ticket runs from 23 September to 8 October.
The year ends with a brand new production of David Wood’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s James and The Giant Peach (19 November to 31 December) from the team that created The Wonderful Wizard of Oz last year.
Artistic Director Lorne Campbell said, “this Christmas we’re making a truly spectacular production of James and The Giant Peach. So giant, in fact, that we will be opening out ‘the Epic Space’ to accommodate it. Putting Stages One and Two together gives us one of the largest stages in the country and we are aiming to fill it with Roald Dahl's epic tale of a young man and his incredible journey with his weird and wonderful friends.”
James and the Giant Peach is aimed at 5- to 11-year-olds and their families and the younger—2- to 4-year-old—age group is catered for by Luna, a story about friendship, the moon and being brave in the dark from Theatre Hullabaloo and Theatre Iolo (6 to 31 December).
Visiting productions include FANS (13 and 14 September), theatre meets gig, based on people’s love affair with music, and Where Do All the Dead Pigeons Go?, which celebrates love and loneliness from Scott Turnbull and writer, actor, comedian, director and musician Ed Gaughan (16 September).
NE-based Unfolding Theatre brings Putting the Band Together on 28 to 30 September and RashDash presents Two Man Show (6 to 8 October), a performance about masculinity, gender and language with original music by Manchester-based composer and musician Becky Wilkie.
The Wardrobe Ensemble tells the story of the class of '72 with a handsome funk guitarist and some spacehoppers in 1972: The Future of Sex (18 to 19 October). Tangled Feet returns with Kicking and Screaming (13 to 15 October), a show about becoming a parent for the first time with a live score played on children's instruments. Then Northumberland Touring Company in association with The Bijli Project present How to Make a Killing in Bollywood (3 to 4 November), a new comedy about two best friends who decide to quit their jobs in a fast food restaurant and head to Bollywood in search of fame and fortune.
From 3 to 5 November, the Actors Touring Company and the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh present the first ever English production of one of the world’s oldest plays, Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women (3 to 5 November). Written more than 2,500 years ago, the story of 50 women who leave everything behind when they board a boat in North Africa to seek asylum in Greece has particular relevance today. The production will feature a chorus of 50 local female performers and is directed by Ramin Gray.
For families and young people, Bare Toed Dance Company and Juice Festival present Downside-Up (24 to 25 October), an interactive aerial dance show; Oily Cart creates a multi-sensory, tactile feast for the senses in Mirror, Mirror (27 to 28 October) and circus skills blend with physical comedy, clowning, juggling, theatrical storytelling and slapstick in The Hogwallops (28 to 29 October) from Lost in Translation Circus.
Finally, for dance fans, Ballet Black (11 to 12 October) comes to Newcastle for the first time with a triple bill of new collaborations from three choreographers. Christopher Hampson’s Storyville is the bittersweet fable of Nola, a farm girl who falls prey to unscrupulous characters and worldly desires in 1920s New Orleans, set to the music of Kurt Weill. The Begin, Begin is a newly devised piece by Christopher Marney and Cristaux is a duet by Arthur Pita.