Three world premières including Ian McDiarmid as Enoch Powell and The Exorcist on stage for the first time in the UK are included in the autumn and winter 2016 season at Birmingham REP.
The theatre’s artistic director Roxana Silbert said, “we continue to attract fantastic audiences by commissioning the best new plays, writers and directors in the country and hosting the cream of national and international companies and theatre makers. I’m particularly proud to be premièring three plays that have local, national and international resonance.
“As we near the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s explosive ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, I’m excited to be working again with the brilliant Ian McDiarmid on Chris Hannan’s What Shadows, a moving and timely exploration of the human impact of this most provocative of speeches.
“We’re also in a unique collaboration with one of the country’s great orchestras, the CBSO, for composer Nick Powell’s beautiful, haunting observations on loneliness and loss in Cold Calling: The Arctic Project (8 until 12 November).
“During this Olympic year, we’ll also shine a light on a quiet hero—Birmingham’s ice-skating champion John Curry who was famously ‘outed’ after wining gold at the 1978 Olympics—in Looking For John by Tony Timberlake (15 until 19 November).
“Nikolai Foster’s fresh and stylish production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest launches the season (9 until 24 September) and Halloween offers a terrifying production of The Exorcist (21 October until 5 November).
“We have two outstanding family shows, Kneehigh’s 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s touching novel (6 until 15 October), and Bryony Lavery’s swashbuckling version of Treasure Island, a Christmas treat for all the family (25 November until 7 January).”
Visiting the REP during the week of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham is Dead Sheep (26 September until 1 October) by ITV reporter Jonathan Maitland—a play about former chancellor Geoffrey Howe’s savaging of Margaret Thatcher in one of the greatest resignation speeches ever made. Dead Sheep features Steve Nallon (Spitting Image) as Margaret Thatcher and Graham Seed as Ian Gow.