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Dateline: 17th May, 2009
Octagon Announces New Season Bolton Octagon's incoming artistic director, David Thacker, who takes over from Mark Babych when he leaves in July, will direct some major works of European and American drama in an ambitious opening eleven-month season beginning in September. The new brochure is filled with testimonials to the new director, including an introduction to the season from Patrick Stewart and quotes about Thacker from Clive Owen and the late Arthur Miller. The season opens in September with a short run of a co-production with Out of Joint, directed by OoJ's Max Stafford-Clark, of Mixed Up North by leading 'verbatim drama' practitioner Robin Soans. Set in a youth theatre group in Burnley, the play is based on a true story and examines the difficulties of uniting divided racial communities. For his own first Octagon production, Thacker turns to Arthur Miller, with whom he had a close working relationship before his death in 2005, and his look at trade, corruption and self-interest in times of war, All My Sons. He follows this with an earlier play that also examines how the sins of the father can corrupt his children: Ibsen's controversial play Ghosts in a version set in nineteenth century Lancashire. For Christmas, the Octagon returns to Dickens – after Christmas 2007's A Christmas Carol – with a new adaptation by Deborah McAndrew of Oliver Twist. Thacker opens 2010 with a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream set in Athens in 1968. Following this will be a revival of And Did Those Feet by Les Smith and Martin Thomasson, a play commissioned by the Octagon in 2007 about the supporters of Bolton Wanderers on their trip to Wembley for the 1923 FA Cup Final. The new director will then direct a revival of Trevor Griffiths's renowned but rarely-revived play Comedians, set in an evening class for would-be comedians in 1975. Ayub Khan-Din's comedy Rafta Rafta, based on local playwright Bill Naughton's All In Good Time, which toured to Manchester only last year in its original National Theatre production, will have its regional premiere at the Octagon. This long season will close with a production of Melvyn Bragg's musical, based on his own novel, The Hired Man, with music by Howard Goodall, directed by Thacker. David Chadderton
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