Sally Dexter, Caroline Harker and Clive Mantle have been cast in Lucy Kirkwood’s thriller The Children which is being revived by Nottingham Playhouse.
Dexter played Simone in Viva Forever!, based on the Spice Girls’ songs, at London’s Piccadilly Theatre in 2012. In The Children, she will take the role of Rose.
Harker will play Hazel. She is known as Hazel Wallace in the ITV police drama A Touch of Frost and in 2018 appeared in Joy Wilkinson’s The Sweet Science of Bruising at Southwark Playhouse.
Mantle, who played Mike Barratt in the BBC drama Casualty, has appeared in numerous theatre productions. In 2017, he was Frank Galvin in Barry Reed’s The Verdict, a Middle Ground Theatre Company production which toured the UK. He will play Robin in The Children.
Kirkwood’s “intimate portrait of relationships contrasted against the epic sweep of a post-apocalyptic world” was first produced at the Royal Court in 2016. It features Hazel and Robin, nuclear physicists living out their retirement on the east coast. When old friend Rose visits, her shocking proposal threatens their entire future.
Director Kirsty Patrick Ward commented, “I’m overjoyed with the incredible cast we’ve brought together for Lucy Kirkwood’s pertinent, insightful and deeply moving play.
“To have three such formidable talents engaged on a play of this calibre is every director’s dream and I can’t wait to see what we’ll find in the rehearsal room when exploring Lucy’s stirring text.
“The Children feels more relevant than ever, and we’re hoping to bring something truly special to the Nottingham Playhouse stage.”
The creative team includes designer Amy Jane Cook, lighting designer Jamie Platt, sound designer Dominic Brennan, movement director and intimacy co-ordinator Struan Leslie, voice and dialect coach Marianne Samuels and casting director Ginny Schiller CDG.
The Children will run at Nottingham Playhouse from Saturday 23 March until Saturday 6 April.