Abigail’s Party 26th-29th October
It’s 1977. The record player is rolling and the fibre light illuminates a crowded living room. Trapped in stifling suburbia and confrontational, dead end marriages, five neighbours, who have little more in common than geographic proximity, get together, get drunk and get increasingly disorderly. Meanwhile, Abigail is holding her own party next door. Abigail’s Party, by Mike Leigh is a sharply satirical, uncomfortably witty attack on the absurdities of Britain’s desperately pretentious middle class, which will leave you laughing and cringing in equal measure.
Look Back in Anger 2nd-5th November
Jimmy Porter is angry. He cannot understand the world around him and feels trapped in it, neither going forwards nor backwards. He takes out his anger on his wife, Alison, and their friend and flatmate, Cliff, but Alison is pregnant and tired of Jimmy’s behaviour. It’s not long before he realises how much he needs her and just how vulnerable he is. John Osborne’s classic angst piece returns to the stage.
Be My Baby 9th-12th November
Set in a Mother and Baby Home in 1964, Be My Baby follows a 19 and unmarried Mary Adams who has fallen pregnant and is forced to go to the home by her mother. Mary along with the other girls, has to cope with the shame of her situation and the realisation that her baby will be taken away and given up for adoption whether she likes it or not. A heart-breaking story but plenty of fun throughout.
The Hothouse 16th-19th November
At once fantastically dark and hilarious, ‘The Hothouse’ takes place in a Sanatorium overseen by a shadowy organisation called the Ministry. Shown only from the point of view of the staff, Pinter’s sharp intelligence highlights the ridiculousness of arbitrary authority and explores the corrupting influence of ultimate power over another human being.
Macbeth 23rd-26th November
A bloody rise to power as you have never seen it before. The monotony of the 21st century office is soon disturbed as ambitious Macbeth usurps and assassinates all in his struggle for boardroom supremacy. Harrowing encounters with the peculiar staff and a ruthless wife propels the established order into unknown chaos. This contemporary performance fuses modernity with the original text to present Shakespeare’s classic reinvented.
Bed 30th-3rd December
Seven elderly people lie together in an enormous bed, infused with youthful energy they re-live their happiest memories, inhabit their wildest dreams and battle against their darkest fears, all the while trying desperately to catch that most sacred bit of shut-eye. But that mysterious head on the shelf has other ideas…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream 7th-10th December
Four lovers, six amateur actors and a gathering of fairies move through a wild forest one night. Around them nature itself is turned on its head as the King and Queen of the Fairies face-off. The moon watches on. Shakespeare’s much-loved comedy is given new life in this immersive production in the round.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead 13th-16th December
Trapped in a Shakespeare play they really don’t want to be in, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern venture to Denmark with a troupe of crossdressing prostitute thespians to interrogate a miserable Hamlet. But when things start to fall apart, they’re left to question who they are, why they’re really here, and what it’s really like to die if all you are is a character in a play…
The Off-White Horse 15th-18th February
Between a mother who had a secret affair three years ago, a youngest daughter who hates her father and a heavily autistic oldest daughter life in the Liddell family isn’t easy. Enter Olivia, a vindictive and manipulative aunt, and latent tensions within the family bubble over and erupt with violent consequences. The Off-White Horse is a challenging, thought-provoking and ultimately heart-warming piece. The New Theatre’s first ever charitable production.
