The new seasons of two Greater Manchester theatres, the Octagon in Bolton and the Royal Exchange in Manchester, have just been revealed.
David Thacker will officially launch the new season at the opening night of The Queen of the North on 4 May, but he revealed the full line-up in an interview with City Life that was published on 27 April. As with every year since Thacker took over the Bolton theatre, the programme for a full twelve months will be announced at once.
The season opens in September with another co-production with Out of Joint, which this time will be Max Stafford-Clark's revival of his original production of Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker. For the first Octagon production, Thacker has obtained from Bill Naughton's widow an unperformed play by the late Bolton-based playwright, Lighthearted Intercourse, which he describes as "rather sexually explicit".
The Christmas show, as already announced, will be Peter Pan which, like last year's Wizard of Oz, will be devised by the theatre's writers' group and directed by Elizabeth Newman, and then 2013 will open with John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men.
Tull will be the world première of a play by Phil Vasili about Walter Tull, a World War I hero who was the first black combat officer in the British Army and the second black footballer to play professionally in Britain. Thacker will return to American classic drama with Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, and then Elizabeth Newman will take over the remainder of the season with madcap comedy Stitched Up by Eve Steele and Ed Jones and Piaf by Pam Gems about the French singer Edith Piaf.
The Royal Exchange will open its autumn and winter season with William Wycherley's classic Restoration comedy The Country Wife directed by Polly Findlay, and then we have more Tennessee Williams as Imogen Stubbs returns to the Exchange for Orpheus Descending directed by co-artistic director Sarah Frankcom.
The Christmas show will be a première of Carol Ann Duffy's Rats' Tales adapted for the stage and directed by Melly Still, and then the season closes in the New Year with James Dacre's production of World War I play The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan.
Public booking for the new seasons will open on 21 May for the Octagon and 6 June for the Royal Exchange.