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Dateline: 9th August, 2009
Out of Joint and the Octagon Are Mixed Up North Out of Joint and the Bolton Octagon are to co-produce Robin Soans' Mixed Up North, a story of an attempt to unite young people from ethnically divided communities in a Lancashire mill town. Based on real events and set in Burnley, the play Trish, who has set up an theatre group for Asian and White teenagers. She brings in a director - the harassed and heavily pregnant Bella - who struggles to share her artistic vision with a cast who think acting is “gay”. The play captures the wit, anger and spirit, as well as the stories and backgrounds, of the young people involved. The play will run in Bolton from 10 September, before a tour culminating in a month at the unique Wilton’s Music Hall in London. It will also play a number of one-night performances in community venues in Lancashire. Director Max Stafford-Clark and writer Robin Soans created the documentary plays Talking to Terrorists and A State Affair. Mixed Up North started life in 2007 when the pair were invited to create a new play with students at the London Academy of Musical and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA).
Stafford-Clark says, “I was invited to the Royal Society for a debate on racism, at which the playwright David Edgar talked about the difficulty for an ethnic group to integrate into parts of society already dominated by another group. For example, he said that it was unsurprising that no Asian had played cricket for Yorkshire. He suggested that if we really wanted to integrate, we needed to create brand new spaces, and mentioned this theatre group. I thought this was fascinating, so Robin and I and the LAMDA students went to Lancashire to meet the people involved, and made their stories into a play. The LAMDA students were very talented and I’m delighted to have been able to cast many of them in the play’s first professional production.”
In Bolton and London the cast will include the Olivier Award-winning Celia Imrie as Trish. She shares the role with Judith Amsenga. The cast also includes Burnley-born Muzz Khan, who, as well as being an actor, is a resident DJ at top London nightclub Pacha; Matthew Wait, best known as Luke Warren in Casualty; and Lisa Kerr, Asif Khan, Kashif Khan, Rose Leslie, Tyrone Lopez, Kathryn O’Reilly, Claire Rafferty, Stephanie Street, Mia Soteriou and Lorna Stuart. Celia Imrie will perform the role of Trish in Bolton on Thursday 10 & Friday 11 September and Tuesday 15 – Saturday 19 September. In London she will perform on all dates except 23 – 28 November and the matinee of 5 December. Judith Amsenga will play Trish at all other performances. Tour dates
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