Ruth Ellis play gets New Vic spring premiere

Published: 8 December 2012
Reporter: Steve Orme

Three of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads can be seen at the New Vic from 25 January until 16 February
Amanda Whittington's The Thrill of Love is at the New Vic from 22 February until 9 March
Rutherford and Son tours to the New Vic from 12 until 16 March

Three of Alan Bennett’s hilarious monologues, the world première of a play about the last woman to be hanged in Britain and the challenge of staging a Jules Verne epic are among the highlights of the spring season at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme.

The programme at the Staffordshire theatre-in-the-round starts with three Talking Heads by Alan Bennett: A Chip in the Sugar, A Lady of Letters and A Cream Cracker under the Settee.

Former New Vic artistic director Gwenda Hughes’s production runs from Friday 25 January until Saturday 16 February.

Four years ago Amanda Whittington’s play Be My Baby was revived by the New Vic. Now the theatre has commissioned her to write The Thrill of Love, a look at how Ruth Ellis was convicted and hanged for the cold-blooded killing of her unfaithful lover.

The story of the woman behind the headlines and the events that drove her to murder runs from Friday 22 February until Saturday 9 March.

Regular visitor to the New Vic Northern Broadsides returns to Staffordshire with the north of England drama Rutherford and Son which will be directed by Sir Jonathan Miller from Tuesday until Saturday 12 to 16 March.

John Godber’s new comedy Losing the Plot which he also directs drops into the New Vic from Tuesday 19 March until Saturday 30 March.

London Classic Theatre is on tour with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and it is at the New Vic from Wednesday 3 April until Saturday 13 April.

The New Vic’s artistic director Theresa Heskins then undertakes what is being described as “her biggest challenge yet”—bringing to the stage Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.

Laura Eason’s adaptation of Verne’s novel takes to the New Vic stage from Friday 19 April until Saturday 11 May.

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