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Dateline: 2nd March, 2008

Jeremy Irons, Lindsay Duncan and Sir David Hare at the launch of the second HighTide Festival

A Second HighTide

The HighTide Theatre Festival will return for its second year to New Cut Arts in Halesworth, Suffolk, from Thursday 1st to Monday 5th May, 2008. Continuing its commitment to supporting the best new work in theatre and film, HighTide will be premiere three new plays:

• Stovepipe by Adam Brace, set in a post-Iraq Middle East;
• Switzerland by Nick Payne, where a woman journeys to Zurich to finally escape her Motor Neurone Disease;
• I Caught Crabs in Walberswick by Joel Horwood, where, in twenty-four hours of exam leave, in the hottest summer ever recorded, the lives of two best friends and three broken families are changed forever. Horwood's play will be co-produced with leading Suffolk-based theatre company Eastern Angles.

HighTide will also develop a new devised production Certain Dark Things with You Need Me, a new young international company. The play explores the delicate relationships within a family living in Spain under the Franco regime and will be performed in the round with live music.

The Breakfast Plays will see acclaimed high-profile writers including Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Laura Wade premiere new short plays performed by the HighTide acting company as rehearsed readings at the start of each day of the Festival. The festival will feature short films, music, comedy, talks and masterclasses by industry professionals including Tom Stoppard

The HighTide creative team for 2008 is led by Artistic Directors Sam Hodges and Steven Jon Atkinson, with expert support from Artistic Advisors Robert Fox ( film and theatre producer) and Tom Morris (Associate Director of the National Theatre) and Patrons Sinead Cusack, Sally Greene OBE, Sir David Hare and Bill Nighy.

"It is crucial to have a festival like HighTide to give new writers, directors and actors a place to start, and the overwhelming success of our first year was one of the most satisfying things I have been involved in," said Bill Nighy.

"HighTide is driven by and supports talented young voices in British theatre and film. It enables writers, directors, producers and performers to create bold new work in a vibrant, creative environment where it has the opportunity to flourish. HighTide is an important new voice on the cultural stage," added Artistic Advisor Robert Fox

The inaugural HighTide Festival was in 2007. It premiered eight new half-hour plays, written by emerging playwrights from around the country. The four full productions were:

• Lyre by Megan Walsh
• Ned and Sharon by Sam Holcroft
• You Were After Poetry by Steven Bloomer
• Weightless by Sarah Cuddon

The four readings were:

• Assembly by Tom Basden
• Inside Out by Matthew Morrison
• VII/ VII by Pericles Snowdon
• Oscar and Jim by Iain Weatherby

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©Peter Lathan 2008