Newcastle’s Northern Stage has announced its programme for February to June, 2016.
The first of a number of in-house and co-productions will be a new version of the classic 1971 crime drama Get Carter written by Torben Betts, who said, “my adaptation is very much a reaction to the novel the film was based on.
"The story is in itself quite simple. A gangster goes back to his home town to bury his older brother and he suspects foul play. He trawls around the town’s underworld until he discovers his suspicions are well-founded.
"What was more interesting was to look at how we could re-imagine this very well-known narrative, to look at Jack’s environment growing up as he did in a brutalised post-war world. I wanted to look at the kind of man Jack Carter is, why he became the way he did.”
Directed by Northern Stage’s Artistic Director Lorne Campbell with set design by Leo Warner/59 Productions and costumes by Imogen Cloet, the production features Kevin Wathen as Jack, Martin Douglas (Frank), Amy Cameron (Doreen), Victoria Elliott (Margaret / Glenda), Benjamin Cawley (Eric), Michael Hodgson (Kinnear / Con) and Donald McBride (Albert / Brumby).
The production runs at Northern Stage from 12 February to 5 March before touring to Glasgow, Richmond (Surrey), Coventry, Doncaster, Durham, Salford and Southampton.
From 2 to 5 March, Associate Director Mark Calvert directs Animal Farm, which will be performed by member of NORTH16, the professional development company for early-career actors from the region.
Former Northern Stage Artistic Director Erica Whyman directs the "nation’s favourite Shakespeare play", A Midsummer Night’s Dream (16 to 26 March), featuring 18 professional Royal Shakespeare Company actors with local amateur groups The Castle Players (Barnard Castle) and The People’s Theatre (Newcastle) as the Mechanicals.
Blanche McIntyre directs a new production of Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off (11 to 28 May) in a Northern Stage, Nottingham Playhouse and Nuffield, Southampton co-production.
Northern Stage Resident Director Rebecca Frecknall directs Zinnie Harris’s update of August Strindberg’s, Miss Julie; Julie (3 to 18 June) places the story of passion, compulsion, love and hate in today’s world.
Improbable returns for another co-production which will open at Northern Stage. Based on Lauren Slater’s book, Opening Skinner’s Box (22 to 30 April) is a whistle-stop tour of the scientific quest to make sense of what we are and who we are, told through ten great psychological experiments and the stories of the people who created them, co-directed by Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson.
Visiting companies include the John Godber Company, Third Angel, balletLORENT, Tangled Feet and the Richard Alston Dance Company.