Dedicated to creating original comedy theatre, New Old Friends is to take its latest work, Crimes Under the Sun, on a three-month, 37-venue tour.
Inspired by Agatha Christie, The 39 Steps and film noir, Crimes Under the Sun is set in a secluded island hotel just off the English coast. It becomes a crime scene after a femme fatale is fatally felled and all the guests are suspects.
The show features the company’s trademark of four actors playing “multiple outrageous characters” and a plot that “races along in a romp”.
Husband-and-wife team Heather Westwell and Feargus Woods Dunlop set up New Old Friends ten years ago. They will be joined by Jonny McClean and Jill Myers in the cast.
After a chance conversation on Twitter, the company met Lichfield Garrick’s artistic director Tim Ford and the Crimes series began with Crimes Against Christmas in 2016, followed by Crimes on the Christmas Express in 2017.
Crimes Under the Sun will be directed by James Farrell, artistic director of Nameless Theatre and an associate practitioner at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Design will be by Carl Davies, lighting by Lloyd Evans and music and sound by Kathryn Levell.
The tour starts at the Theatre Royal, Bath from 13 until 24 February. Press night will be 20 February. Other venues include Wolverhampton, Maidstone, Harlow, Middlesbrough, Swindon, Chipping Norton, Lichfield, Winchester, Dorchester, Nottingham, Newbury, Swansea, Inverness, Durham, Lincoln, Leeds, Salisbury, Canterbury and Fife until 27 May.
The full list of dates is available at the New Old Friends web site.