Theatre at this year's Latitude Festival (14th – 17th July 2011
at Henham Park Estate, Southwold, Suffolk) includes:
Lyric Hammersmith returns once again with a show exclusively
for Latitude. Experience Jekyll and Hyde with a difference as Spymonkey
and Peepolykus join director Sean Holmes and writer Joel Horwood
to create a theatrical extravaganza.
The Bush is back for the fourth year with a haunting tale
by Anthony Weigh, The Flooded Grave, a spine-chilling graveside
tale about faith, madness and murder which will be performed in a
hidden location as darkness falls on the Festival.
BAC artists in residence will be scratching new ideas for
theatre at Latitude. The Loveliness Principle is a challenge
from Rabbit for visitors to discover, a hunt for something precious
and remarkable. This message is being delivered in a co-production
between Coney and BAC.
Fuel returns to Latitude with two shows. The first is The
Summer House, a comedy thriller devised by Will Adamsdale, Neil
Haigh, Matthew Steer and John Wright and directed by John Wright.
Three men arrive by car at a remote Farmhouse in the countryside.
Who are they? Where are they? Are those stuffed beavers on the wall?
Then the Vikings arrive. The Summer House is a first time collaboration
between Will Adamsdale, Neil Haigh (Cartoon de Salvo), Matthew Steer
and John Wright (co-founder of Told By An Idiot and Trestle).
Their second show is Jackson’s Way by Will Adamsdale,
a satire on the world of self help and corporate jargon, but so much
more…. “Hi I’m Jackson & ten years ago I got excited...”
A life-coaching legend tells you how he made it happen . . . and stay
happened!
Paines Plough in association with NSDF have enticed
performance poet Kate Tempest to write her first play. Specifically
commissioned for a festival-going audience and premiering at the Latitude
Festival, Tempest’s debut promises"her trademark lyrical
ferocity in a dynamic theatrical staging."
Clean Break debuts at Latitude with two new plays from their
Charged season at Soho Theatre: Dancing
Bears, written by Sam Holcroft, is a vivid and vital look
at girl gangs and life lived on the edge and Fatal
Light by Chloë Moss which depicts a young mother struggling
to cope with separation from her daughter. Tessa Walker and Lucy Morrison
direct.
Suffolk’s leading festival theatre company HighTide present
Incoming, a world premiere by poet, novelist, critic and academic
Andrew Motion, coproduced with The Poetry Trust and Dance East.
Theatre503 will be bringing some cutting edge new work to
Latitude this year, pushing at the boundaries of what theatre can
be and posing the unanswerable questions of our time.
Tim Crouch presents I, Malvolio, the fourth in a series
of I, Shakespeare plays for young peopl,e the story of Twelfth
Night told through the eyes of Shakespeare’s most pent-up
steward. Replete with shabby stockings, it is a charged, hilarious
and often unsettling rant from a man who was “notoriously wronged”.
A story of lost dignity, prudery, practical jokes and bullying.
Using an all-female ensemble, Theatre Delicatessen present
a new imagining of A Doll's House that challenges the complacent
modern view that women and men are equal in the eyes of the law, the
home and wider society. How far do women contort themselves in order
to fit in with patriarchal customs, physicalities, languages and emotions?
The Forward Theatre Project presents On
The Harmful Effects of Tobacco/Can Cause Death, a Chekhov
one-act play and a companion piece by new writer Alison Carr, directed
by Charlotte Bennett and starring David Bradley.
Director and writer Ella Hickson presents Hot Mess.
Polo and Twitch were born twins, but with only one heart. Twitch got
the heart and Polo was left with a hole. Polo is not looking to be
loved and Twitch can do nothing but. As they turn 25 they return to
the island where they were brought up and face old friends and new.
Hickson explores the effect of growing up in a world where sex and
love are increasingly separated and asks how twenty-somethings deal
with the death of Happy Ever After.
nabokov is dedicated to commissioning, developing and producing
"backlash theatre" – work that offers an antagonistic
response to contemporary agendas, trends and events. They will be
presenting their latest work Fairy Tales.
Theatre Uncut is a national theatrical uprising against public
spending cuts, where drama groups, universities, youth clubs and theatre
companies combine and link up to stage their own creative form of
protest. Writers include Dennis Kelly, Lucy Kirkwood, Laura Lomas,
David Greig, Anders Lustgarten (based on an initial idea by Simon
Stephens and Anders Lustgarten), Mark Ravenhill, Jack Thorne and Reclaim’s
writer in residence, Clara Brennan. A selection of these plays will
be performed at Latitude’s Theatre Arena and will give festival-goers
a chance to get involved and speak out about this financial crisis.
The Lab Collective will be bringing their production Matador.
Tapping into the nation’s distrust and dislike of the banking
industry, the play treads the line between theatre, installation and
art.
New to Latitude this year are Whippet Productions who will
be presenting their new work Spies In Room 502 by Jonathan
Brittain, an award-winning comedy about espionage, fantasy and erectile-dysfunction.
Company Of Angels in association with the Bristol Old Vic
present I, Peaseblossom, one third of Tim Crouch's trilogy
fairymonsterghost, original new look at A Midsummer Night's
Dream, told from the point of view of a character whose destiny
is to watch the main action from the sidelines.
Out of Chaos' Unmythable narrates, physicalises, sings
and clowns its way through all the Greek myths you've ever heard of,
and some you never knew existed, including The Odyssey told
from a foot-soldier's perspective, Orpheus the washed-up wedding singer,
heroes, monsters and randy Gods.
Pentabus Theatre makes its Latitude debut with May Fair.
Spring is in the air as the fair comes to town, turning normal life
on its head. Why is it that this age-old tradition still holds the
power to intrigue, provoke and inspire?
The National Student Drama Festival presents Robin Hood
in a new version by Chris Thorpe, written in verse and owing more
to the UK today - the one where we're 'all in this together' - and
the darkness of Rambo: First Blood than to the tights, arrows,
and sugary ballads of ‘Merrie England’.
Northern Stage and Third Angel present Tea Is An
Evening Meal by Faye Draper in a Come Dine With Us ‘up north’
style production. This Lancashire lass invites you to join her at
the teatime table, sharing personal experiences, gathered stories
and a nice cuppa tea.
non zero one, which makes interactive performances, presents
the time out in which you, the audience members, are told that
in 9 minutes and 39 seconds, you will be facing something huge - alongside
people you may never have met. As the size of the task ahead becomes
clear, time stops. In the time out, what will you need to know about
the people in this room to feel ready to take on the task together?
What will you ask, what will you tell, and what difference will any
of it make?
Il Pixel Rosso brings And The Birds Fell From The Sky
to Latitude. The audience, sittomg in wheelchairs and equipped with
video goggles and headphones, become part of a bizarre messenger story.
Forest Fringe will transform Latitude’s Literary Salon
into a place of unlikely hidden encounters. Each night the space will
be re-imagined by a different Forest Fringe artist, creating their
own festival experience. On Thursday, Bristol-based company Tinned
Fingers will beguile the audience with The Last Romance Club (Ever),
on Friday Brian Lobel curates a spectacular array of intimate performances
as part of Cruising for Art and on Saturday night Andy Field
hosts Eponymous, a surreal re-enactment of the whole festival
in the space of a single evening.
Red Shift returns to Latitude with crowd embedded live theatre,
The Invisible Show II. Young lovers leap from their skins,
the middle aged climb out carefully; father and son, estranged, collide;
a Down’s birth changes everything; a brilliant nanny/employer
affair shrinks into the dark; a comic decides he’s finished;
an ailing mother worries into her phone; and each day someone donates
a real life-changing funny/frightening experience to the performance.
ETT (English Touring Theatre) will be providing Latitude's
Poetry Arena audience with a brand new spoken word production entitled
Little Baby Jesus written by Arinze Kene.
The Waterfront Stage will see performances by Sadler's Wells
(details to be announced) and English National Ballet which
will performn two pas de deux, from Carmen and Don
Quixote.
The Festival also features a wide range of music, comedy, visual art,
literature, poetry and film.
