Alan Ayckbourn returns to Newcastle-under-Lyme with a “concoction of farce, comedy, drama and melodrama” featuring a handful of audience members as well as a new revival of one of his comedies.
Henceforward was first produced in Scarborough in 1987 and then in London’s West End. It won the Evening Standard award for best comedy.
It features avant garde composer Jerome who is struggling to complete his life’s masterwork about love. But he has lost the source of his artistic inspiration, his beloved daughter Geain—taken away by her mother, Jerome’s hostile, estranged ex-wife. With the help of a deranged, android childminder, Jerome hatches a cunning plan to get her back.
The cast comprises Bill Champion, Andy Cryer, Russell Dixon, Jessie Hart, Velvet Hebditch, Jacqueline King and Laura Matthews.
Ayckbourn directs. Roger Glossop is set designer, Rebecca Cartwright is costume designer and lighting designer is Jason Taylor.
It runs at the New Vic Theatre from Tuesday 11 until Saturday 29 October alongside Alan Ayckbourn’s The Karaoke Theatre Company in which the audience is largely responsible for what happens. Some of the audience create sound effects or have a role in a short sketch, although no one is forced to take part.
There are four short plays: The Plumber, The Sister, Whodunnit? and Horror Story—a farce, a costume comedy, a subtitled “foreign” drama and a gothic horror tale.
The cast comprises Karen Drake, Anna Raleigh, Rufus Wellington, Alyssia Cook, Oliver Nelson and Edie Hardy. Designer is Kevin Jenkins and Tigger Johnson is lighting designer.
Alan Ayckbourn’s Karaoke Theatre Company runs from Friday 14 until Saturday 29 October.