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Dateline: 29th April, 2007
The Octagon Theatre in Bolton has announced its programme for its 40th anniversary season, which executive director John Blackmore has described as "the most ambitious and comprehensive season of work in the 40 years of the Octagon’s history". The season opens in September with Blake Morrison's take on Lysistrata by Aristophanes called Lisa's Sex Strike, produced in association with Northern Broadsides and directed by Conrad Nelson. Morrison relocates the story to a present day northern mill-town torn apart by racial tensions. Following this, artistic director Mark Babych directs the world premiere of a new play commissioned from Les Smith and Martin Thomasson about Bolton Wanderers Football Club, set in 1922 when the Wanderers reached the FA Cup Final at the brand new Wembley Stadium. In October, Babych directs the Joan Littlewood Theatre Workshop hard-hitting musical entertainment about the slaughter of soldiers in World War I, Oh What A Lovely War. For Christmas, the Octagon this year has abandoned Roald Dahl for Charles Dickens, with a newly-commissioned adaptation from Neil Duffield of A Christmas Carol, directed by Conrad Nelson. An Octagon tradition that is to continue is its run of Arthur Miller revivals, which continues in January 2008 with The Crucible, directed by Mark Babych. Another writer whose work has been seen a lot here recently is former Octagon writer-in-residence Jim Cartwright, whose most famous play Road will be produced at the Octagon next March. This is followed by Spring and Port Wine by Bill Naughton, another local writer after whom the Octagon named its studio theatre. Another world premiere, Tanika Gupta's Meet The Mukherjees, is described as East is East collides with Meet The Fockers, a romantic comedy directed by Babych. The season ends with another world premiere from Taboo writer Mark Davies Markham called Just A Gigolo, also directed by Babych, the story of a jazz trumpeter set in Bolton in 1952. There will also be a special performance from comedian Dave Spikey and a special guest in September, when he will answer questions from the audience about his comedy career, his previous life as a hospital scientist and how he started in show business. Babych, who has been artistic director since 1999, expressed his pride about being in charge of the theatre during some major changes. He said, "The challenges that my colleagues and I set ourselves at the beginning are now bearing fruit in what is a very ambitious season for us. When I first started here the average cast size was four and even slipped down to two at one stage. Now we are in the unique position of being able to perform works with up to 18 actors on stage. A remarkable journey." David Chadderton Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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