Waterloo Tunnels, Theatre503 and The Gate
If it's new adaptations of novels that you're after then a visit to Waterloo's Leake Street tunnels for Vault 2014 is in order.
This six-week festival opens at the end of the month and has at its core Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and The Cement Garden.
Hunter S Thompson’s cult classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is directed and adapted by Lou Stein, a long–time friend of Thompson’s, and the cast includes the winners of the 2013 Funny Women Awards, Nina Smith and Libby Northedge, who perform as comedy duo Twisted Loaf.
The adaptation of Ian McEwan’s coming of age tale The Cement Garden by David Aula and Jimmy Osborne receives its world première. Directed by David Aula it is staged across two levels and audiences will have access to the cellar which houses the family’s secret.
In the cast is Scottish BAFTA winner George MacKay making his professional stage début; his recent film credits include Sunshine on Leith. Alongside MacKay is Ruby Bentall, whose credits on television include the role of Minnie in Lark Rise to Candleford and on stage include Grief at the National Theatre and Peter and Alice in the Michael Grandage season.
Included in the Vault 2014 programme is free live music and comedy, and late night events.
For further information and booking, visit The Vault web site.
The widely-reported fears surrounding the anticipated flood of Bulgarians and Romanians to the UK forms an ironic backdrop to Occupied, a play set in a derelict Victorian public toilet by award-winning writer Carla Grauls, current holder of the Nick Darke Award 2013. In this darkly comic play, to be directed by Anna Mors, two Romanian immigrants kidnap an Englishman to learn how to be English.
This play is part of the season at Battersea’s Theatre503, which opens this month with Woman in the Dunes by Japanese writer Abe Kobo. This story of a stranded insect collector forced to spend the night in a shack alongside a mysterious woman will be directed by its adaptor, Micha Colombo.
Also in the programme, associate artistic director Lisa Cagnacci is to direct a dark comedy about love, loss and real estate by actress and television writer Annie Hulley making her stage writing début with Dog Days, and Artistic Director Paul Robinson will direct A Handful of Stars by Billy Roche as 2014’s Second Look production.
The previously announced A World Elsewhere by Alan Franks has been cast: Michael Swatton, whose credits include Maid of Bankside at the Jermyn Street Theatre, will play headstrong student Elliott, and Crispian Cartwright, whose credits include Judgement at Nuremberg, will play the professor Mayhew. Other cast members are Steffan Donnelly, Dan Van Garrett and Sophia Sivan. Sally Knyvette directs.
For further information and booking, visit the Theatre503 web site.
January may be about new beginnings, but to have beginnings you have to have endings too.
At West London venue The Gate, the These American Lives season comes to a close with the final play, The Body of an American. This award-winning documentary drama is directed by the new artistic director of the Royal & Derngate Northampton, James Dacre, and is the subject of three Gate Debates.
For further information and booking, visit The Gate web site. The forthcoming season at The Gate is covered in a later feature.