South Shields-based writer Ken Reay is to revive a play which was first performed at South Shields Customs House in September 2006. Then The Butcher’s Bill was produced by Lobster Productions, a company run by Reay and actor/director Darren Palmer; now, almost 12 years later, his company Canny Craic is to tour a rewritten version around the region.
The original, Reay said, “was very well received and I decided to re-write it in the light of feedback from that production.”
Three men meet up in no-man’s land—a boy soldier, an older man and a wounded officer. All want to escape the war. All have seen too much death and destruction. The play explores the stories of all three men in what Canny Craic’s Val McGregor describes as “a very black comedy of survival in extreme circumstances.”
The new production will be directed by Jamie Brown whose credits include Rainbird – The Tragedy of an Artist and Death at Dawn (Cloud Nine Theatre), The Man and the Donkey and Romeo and Juliet (Customs House) as an actor and Geordie the Musical (Customs House) as director.
The cast will be Paul Dunn (I Left My Heart in Roker Park), Steven Arran and Lawrence Neale (The Dirty Flea-Bitten Scrounging Bastard).
The production opens at South Shields & Westoe Club on 11 June 2018 before going on to:
- 12 June
Alington House, Durham City - 14 – 16 June (2:30 matinée on 16)
Customs House, South Shields - 20 & 21 June
Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle - 22 June
Arts Centre Washington - 23 June
The Exchange, North Shields