Blue / Orange revival at Northampton venue

Published: 15 September 2021
Reporter: Steve Orme

Interrogation of power and privilege: Blue / Orange

Northampton’s Royal and Derngate has announced two productions to complete its 2021–22 season including a new production of the biting contemporary satire Blue / Orange.

Twenty years after its première, writer Joe Penhall is collaborating with co-creators Giles Terera, Michael Balogun and Royal and Derngate's artistic director James Dacre to shine new light on this “incendiary interrogation of power and privilege in modern Britain”. The play won the Olivier, Critics' Circle and Evening Standard awards for best new play in 2001.

Terera said, "I vividly remember how fired up and moved I was watching Joe Penhall's extraordinary play when it premièred. I believe the play can speak to us just as much if not more so now than it did then. Getting to explore its themes of identity, mental health, race and a power struggle at the heart of the NHS alongside Michael Balogun is something I'm very excited about."

A co-production with Theatre Royal Bath and Oxford Playhouse, Blue / Orange will run at Royal and Derngate from Tuesday 23 November until Saturday 4 December.

The Northampton venue will then première The Wellspring, an autobiographic work from playwright Barney Norris and his father, pianist and broadcaster David Owen Norris. It will run from Thursday 17 until Saturday 26 March 2022.

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