Sneak peek: Public Enemy photo shoot

Public Enemy rehearsals are well under way and we recently did a photo shoot with cast members Nick Fletcher, Darrell D’Silva, Bryan Dick and Beatrice Walker.  Check out some of the great shots, taken by Johan Persson at the Jerwood Space!

This new take on Ibsen’s classic is written by David Harrower, directed by Richard Jones and designed by Miriam Beuther, who was just nominated for an Olivier for last year’s Wild Swans set design.  This dream team also collaborated on our hit production of Government Inspector in 2011.  Public Enemy begins 4 May – book now online or call the Box Office.

#PublicEnemyYV

Beatrice Walker plays Petra

Bryan Dick plays Hovstad

Nick Fletcher plays Dr Stockmann

Darrell D’Silva plays the Mayor

4 stars for My Perfect Mind, “an exquisite piece of tomfoolery” – UPDATED

Photo by Manuel Harlan

UPDATED: After another pair of 4 star reviews, from Time Out and The Independent, we have added a second extension week for My Perfect Mind! Book now for the show Matt Trueman calls “the best show in London by far.”

4 stars across the board for My Perfect Mind!  Check out some of the rave reviews and audience tweets below.

★ ★ ★ ★
“Like watching a masterclass on King Lear under the influence of LSD… the Young Vic is on a roll’’
The Daily Telegraph – read the full review here

★ ★ ★ ★
“Infected by gleeful madness”
The Guardian – read the full review here

★ ★ ★ ★
“Charming, very funny and occasionally bizarre”
Evening Standard – read the full review here

★ ★ ★ ★
“Petherbridge’s gift for dry self-parody and Paul Hunter’s quirky company Told by an Idiot become wilder and funnier”
The Times

liz hoggard ‏@lizhoggard
My Perfect Mind @youngvictheatre, wonderful, anarchic take on playing King Lear. Edward Petherbridge most elegant man on London stage

Mark Shenton ‏@ShentonStage
Just back from opening of MY PERFECT MIND @YoungVicTheatre, a layered, playful & poignant story of Edward Petherbridge’s stroke & recovery.

Ian DG Nicholson ‏@idgnicholson
@toldbyanidiot93 production of #myperfectmind is brilliant. Touching, theatrical and very,very funny, “if it ain’t broke, break it”.

Caroline Goyder ‏@CarolineGoyder
#myperfectmind is a joy and a delight. Loved its humour, its wild swoops across time and space and its wisdom about life and Lear @youngvic

Jesse Briton ‏@youbigjesse
Do anything to see #MyPerfectMind by @toldbyanidiot93 @youngvictheatre utterly, utterly brilliant. Touching, funny, and life-affirming.

My Perfect Mind has been extended until 27 April.  Tickets are available at youngvic.org.

A Doll’s House – production photos

Take a look at these great new shots of A Doll’s House, now playing in our Main House. Photos by Richard Hubert Smith

Theatre Club

There are many things I am going to miss about my job while I am on maternity leave. Part of the problem is I don’t just see it as a job. It is a series of projects with wonderful, warm, diverse people that have a direct impact of my life and the way I think. Having a baby seems to be just another one. Except it won’t culminate in an evaluation. I suspect there will be just as much tea and cake, though.

One of the projects I will miss the most is Theatre Club. It’s my other baby. The project I feel the most emotionally connected to and completely inspired by. The idea for Theatre Club came to me last September when I was chatting to one of my Two Boroughs members who had come to see Three Sisters. She only ever applies for one ticket, and comes and leaves alone. She has a great time and she enjoys her time here, but it struck me that I take the opportunity to discuss and argue and rage for granted. I work in a theatre. A lot of my friends are theatre makers. My colleagues go to see the plays I go to see, and there is a whole community around me built around a shared, collective experience. Simply, I always have someone to talk to.

In my work here I am continuously trying to identify, and break down, barriers to participation in the arts. Many are obvious:  lack of money, feeling you are the wrong age, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong gender, simply a lack of invitation. A lack of language – not of basic understanding of English, but theatrical and artistic literacy, is not something we regularly, or readily, address in participation. How do you discuss what you have seen if you do not have the words? Or anyone to use those words with? So I started Theatre Club. The premise is simple. It is run along much the same lines as a book club – you read a book in your own time at your own speed, you don’t close it and start a discussion. So Theatre Club is held after all of my tickets have been used, on a different evening. The invite is to anyone who has come and seen the show on a Two Boroughs free ticket. The event is also free, of course. It needed to feel welcoming – my role is basically host – so I give away wine, juice, and nibbles (at Christmas there were a lot of mince pies…).

And there is a someone to lead the discussions. One of the most important tenets of the group is that no one involved in the artistic process of the show under discussion is allowed in. No one who represents the Young Vic (apart from me) is allowed in. The director is persona non grata. It needs to be a space where people are comfortable giving their opinion without fear of offence or judgment. So I needed an outsider, not just to be a neutral voice, but a guiding one, who would help us to articulate our thoughts and feelings. I approached Maddy Costa for this role on the basis of her work with theatre makers, in particular Chris Goode and his Transform project at West Yorkshire Playhouse. She seemed to have an openness in her writing and engagement that suggested she would be ideal for my group. She was, and she has been the discussion leader ever since, even starting Theatre Club (albeit with audience members who have paid for their tickets) at the Battersea Arts centre recently. My baby is growing up.

What has amazed me the most is the response we have had from Two Boroughs members. This started as an idea I wasn’t sure anyone else would be interested in, and has grown into hundreds of people who want to join in our evenings. Before we even began I had emails and letters: ‘This is something I’ve ALWAYS wanted so – HOORAY.’ After we were up and running I had more: ‘You’re dead right about how much fun the discussion group was.  Everyone has an opinion; theatre buffs or not.  I didn’t have much to say myself but it’s nice to hear other peoples thoughts on a show.’ And during the evenings themselves people asked why we were holding them, what we had to gain. I asked them what they thought about this question. The responses amazed me again: ‘I didn’t have anyone to discuss it with so this is really nice,’ ‘I came to find out what I missed,’ ‘…not to be laughed at, a nice kind environment to have an opinion in,’ ‘I came to see if I am the only person to have these opinions,’ ‘It’s a gift to the people of Lambeth and Southwark to talk about art.’

I don’t see it as a gift to them. It is a gift to us here in the theatre – to see how much and in what way people are engaged and enlivened by an opportunity to be seen and heard. It’s going to be a tricky project to miss but I am leaving it in capable hands. I just can’t wait to be back.

Lily Einhorn, Two Boroughs Project Manager

A Taking Part knees-up!

Drumtastic

We like a good knees-up in Taking Part. Who doesn’t? So what better way to celebrate the end of a project than with a party! The Taking Part department have spent the last four months working on a Parallel production to run alongside the main house production of Feast. Where Feast took as its inspiration Yoruba and the diaspora of Nigerian people, we inverted the idea, looking at our cast of local Lambeth and Southwark people and asking how we all ended up in the area.  Essentially – who are we are where have we come from? The outcome was a beautiful salad bowl of people, all mixed up in the same two boroughs, different but together. The resulting show, Flashes, was devised and written from the weird, wild and wonderful stories that the participants brought to the room. Threads were woven together in a giant tapestry of movement, colour and story as we were treated to a show in which young people and elder people and everyone in between from a diversity of backgrounds acted together on stage.

And so to our knees up. To celebrate the show, to celebrate our local community, to welcome our friends and neighbours to the theatre, we threw open our doors on a Sunday, got in stall holders and Nigerian food, made some drinks, and booked some bands. The fantastic Cosmic Child played as we ate, drank and talked, and then Drumtastic put on a foot-stomping show on the set of Flashes. As the band played and people jumped up to dance and clap, we looked around us, at the people of different ages, from different community groups, all listening and laughing together. They are our community, and we love ‘em!

Lily Einhorn is our Two Boroughs Projects Managers.

Flashes

New studio shows announced for 2013

Trash Cuisine

The Secret Agent

The Events

Brilliant

A note from David Lan, Artistic Director of Young Vic:

I’m delighted to announce three new shows in The Maria, all with strong political themes. Violence underpins our world: how can we manage to live well within it? 

The incomparable Belarus Free Theatre return with a characteristically poetic but incisive attack on the use of capital punishment in Belarus and other parts of the world. Drawing on real-life experiences from four continents, re-telling them in their unique, now celebrated style, Trash Cuisine is all we expect from BFT – provocation, daring and unforgettable theatre.

Betrayal and terror drive Theatre O’s new show inspired by The Secret Agent. Using performance styles from the time when Conrad’s masterpiece was written (expressionism, early film), Joseph Alford’s vibrant young company tell the story of an anarchist cell and a woman’s struggle to rescue her young brother from an involuntary suicide mission.

Set in contemporary Scotland, David Greig’s The Events asks: ‘What are the limits of empathy?’ ‘Is it ever possible to understand an extreme act of violence?’ Directed by Ramin Gray and featuring a community choir, it’s an urgent gaze into the deeper waters of human experience.

But in the Clare, a wholly different mood as Fevered Sleep return with their ever scintillating Brilliant, a mesmeric show for the very youngest of audiences.

Trash Cuisine
30 May – 15 June 2013                                                               

Internationally acclaimed and fearlessly inventive Belarus Free Theatre return to the Young Vic with an arresting new production that challenges the use of capital punishment in modern society. Drawn from conversations with executioners, human rights lawyers, inmates and their families and re-told in Belarus Free Theatre’s inimitable style, Trash Cuisine is urgent theatre that pierces the imagination with moments of the darkest humour.

In 2013, Belarus is the last country in Europe to still use the death penalty, keeping company with 94 other countries across the world. Banned from performing openly in their home country, Belarus Free Theatre present a hard-hitting new work that weaves together real-life testimonies with extracts of Shakespeare’s tragedies, live music and dance to challenge the justification behind capital punishments continued use. Researched over 5 years, Trash Cuisine shares harrowing stories from Thai and Belarusian executioners, a man who endured decades in prison on false grounds and human rights lawyers who watched their defendants face the electric chair, to build an unforgettable picture of the violence and cruelty authorised by governments across the world.

Belarus Free Theatre was founded in 2005 in Europe’s last surviving dictatorship by husband and wife team Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, joined shortly afterwards by Vladimir Shcherban. All company members together with audiences have been arrested, lost their jobs, been forced into hiding or exile for making theatre.

BOOK TICKETS

The Secret Agent
4 – 21 September 2013

Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s classic novel, The Secret Agent is theatre O’s heartbreaking but hilarious chronicle of passion, betrayal and terrorism. In their trademark highly imaginative style, music hall and early cinema collide in theatre O’s return to the stage after 5 years away.

 The Secret Agent (published 1907) is an early example of the political thriller. It’s the story of a reluctant spy pressured by ‘a foreign power’ to blow up the Greenwich Observatory so as to provoke the UK government into passing repressive legislation. Using early 20th century forms of entertainment, including music hall, magic-lantern and early cinematic techniques, theatre O tell the story at its heart – that of a woman fighting to protect her young brother from exploitation and violence – and find a surprisingly modern tale that resonates as strongly today as it did over a century ago.

theatre O is a vehicle for co-artistic directors Joseph Alford and Carolina Valdés to create and tour inspirational, devised inter-disciplinary theatre. Their aim is to make work that inspires, moves and challenges both themselves and the audience.

BOOK TICKETS

The Events
9 October – 2 November 2013
A new play written by David Greig
Directed by Ramin Gray

David Greig’s The Events is a vigorous new play about tragedy, obsession and our destructive desire to understand the unfathomable. Directed by Ramin Gray and featuring local choirs and a soaring modern soundtrack, it asks how far forgiveness can stretch in the face of atrocity.

At the heart of The Events is Claire, a woman who finds herself caught up in a politically and racially motivated mass murder, which upturns everything she believed about herself and a young man she thought she knew. David Greig’s new drama examines the limits of human empathy and our need to understand extreme acts of violence.

David Greig’s recent plays include Midsummer: a play with songs (Soho Theatre and Traverse), Dunsinane (Royal Shakespeare Company at Hampstead Theatre), The Monster in the Hall (Traverse) and The Strange Undoing of  Prudencia Hart (Tron and National Theatre of Scotland). He has written the book for the new West End musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, directed  by Sam Mendes, which opens in June 2013.

Actors Touring Company, led by Ramin Gray, presents the best of international contemporary theatre. Recent shows include Wild Swans (co-production with the Young Vic), The Golden Dragon, Crave and Illusions. The Events is an Actors Touring Company, Young Vic, Brageteatret & Schauspielhaus Wien Co-Production.

BOOK TICKETS

Brilliant
3 – 13 July 2013                                                                                         

Brilliant – Fevered Sleep’s enchanting show for 3 to 5-year-olds returns to the Young Vic this summer for a limited two-week run. Fevered Sleep are leading innovators in theatre-making and visual arts projects for children and Brilliant is an unforgettable introduction to theatre for young audiences and their families combining movement, live music and captivating imagery.

First seen at the Young Vic in 2009, Brilliant is the final part of Fevered Sleep’s trilogy for young audiences which includes Feast Your Eyes and And the Rain Falls Down exploring everyday rituals as extraordinary creative events.  It was nominated for the Best Show for Children and Young People TMA award in 2008. Award winning Fevered Sleep uses live music, inventive lighting, movement and rich theatricality to create a dreamlike world made of light.

Young Vic associate company Fevered Sleep has an international reputation for devising groundbreaking work that is both playful and profound, through surprising and intimate experiences that encourage people to see the world in new and unexpected ways.

Brilliant is recommended for ages 3 to 5. Not suitable for younger children.

BOOK TICKETS

A Season in the Congo – cast announced!

We’re delighted to announce the full cast for A Season in the Congo!

BAFTA Award-winning director Joe Wright and Olivier Award-winning choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui join forces again following their partnership on the film version of Anna Karenina.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Patrice Lumumba in his Young Vic debut. He received an Olivier for his portrayal of Othello at the Donmar Warehouse in 2008, and a Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Award for his role in Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange at the National Theatre in 2000. Chiwetel has received three Golden Globe nominations for his work on screen. Film and TV audiences will have seen him last in Stephen Poliakoff’s BBC drama Dancing on the Edge as well as in Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things, the dystopian sci-fi Children of Men and thriller Salt. He will star in Steve McQueen’s hotly anticipated film 12 Years a Slave, opening later this year.

 Daniel Kaluuya plays Mokutu. He is currently appearing in Joe Wright’s production of Trelawny of the Wells at the Donmar Warehouse. Past work in theatre includes Oxford Street and Roy Williams’ Sucker Punch at the Royal Court (for which he won a Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Award). TV appearances include Channel 4 cult drama Skins, Black

Mirror, Psychoville and Doctor Who.

Joseph Mydell plays Kala Lubu, first President of Congo after Independence. Joseph’s past work in theatre includes numerous roles for the RSC, notably the title role in Antony Sher’s production of Breakfast with Mugabe (Soho). Other theatre credits include The Comedy of Errors, Edmond, Alice’s Adventures Underground, Angels in America (for which he
won an Olivier Award) for the National Theatre, As You Like It (Royal Exchange) and The Treatment (Royal Court).

The full company of A Season in the Congo is: Lydie Alberto, Nandi Bhebhe, Brian Bovell, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Kurt Egyiawan, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Kaluuya, Joan Iyiola, Josépha Madoki, Joseph Mydell, Sandra Reid, Ira Mandela Siobhan and Oliver Tida Tida.

It’s an amazing company – book your tickets today!

Meet the cast of Public Enemy!

We’re delighted to announce the amazing cast for Public Enemy!

Nick Fletcher and Darrell D’Silva play Doctor Stockmann and the Mayor in Richard Jones’ ingenious new production of Public Enemy. 

When Doctor Stockmann discovers that the waters of the new public spa are toxic, he expects gratitude and glory. But his revelation makes him the most hated man in town. How far will a man go to stand up for the truth? 

 

Nick Fletcher

Nick Fletcher takes on the role of Doctor Stockmann following his appearance as Nils Krogstad in the Young Vic’s acclaimed production of A Doll’s House, a role he will reprise when the production returns on 28 March.

His past work in the theatre includes A Woman Killed With Kindness, The White Guard, The Overwhelming, Once In A Lifetime, Playing With Fire and The UN Inspector (for the National Theatre); Twisted Tales (Lyric Hammersmith); Thyestes (Arcola); A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Two Gentlemen Of Verona (Regent’s Park); King Lear (Old Vic). Television appearances include Silk, Harley Street, Midsomer Murders, New Tricks, True Dare Kiss and After The War.

Nick Fletcher as Krogstad in A Doll’s House in 2012

Darrell D’Silva

Darrell D’Silva returns to the Young Vic to play the Mayor. Past work for the RSC includes the roles of Antony in Michael Boyd’s production of Antony and Cleopatra, Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale, Kent in King Lear and Kotomtsev in Antony Neilson’s The Drunks. He has worked with Richard Jones on productions of Tales from the Vienna Woods (NT), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC) and at the Young Vic in Six Characters Looking for an Author. Film and television appearances include Dirty Pretty Things, Poppy Shakespeare and Saddam’s Tribe. 

Darrell D’Silva in Six Characters Looking for an Author in 2001

Niall Ashdown

Niall Ashdown joins the cast as Aslaksen, he was last at the Young Vic in Richard Jones’ production of Annie Get Your Gun. Niall is an actor and comedian and he regularly appeared in Whose Line is it Anyway?

Adam Best

Adam Best joins the cast as Horster. Adam is currently in the is currently appearing in the West End production of The Woman in Black playing the role of The Actor.

Bryan Dick

 Bryan Dick joins the cast as Hovstad. Bryan was most recently at the Young Vic in Sound&Fury’s incredible production Kursk in 2010.

Joel Fry

Joel Fry will play Billing. Joel has most recently been playing a lead part on BBC 3 series The White Van Man. 

Charlotte Randle

Charlotte Randle joins the cast as Mrs Stockmann. Charlotte has worked extensively in theatre and previously performed at the Young Vic as Regan in Rupert Goold’s King Lear (2009).

David Sibley

David Sibley will play Morten Kiil. David has worked extensively in theatre, his previous Young Vic credits include Sweet Nothings (2010), Uncle Vanya (2009) and Cruel and Tender (2004).

Beatrice Walker

Beatrice Walker will play Petra, this is Beatrice’s professional stage debut. Beatrice trained at Guildhall and has previously played such roles as Nina in The Seagull, Natasha in Three Sisters and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. 

Very exciting! Tickets are on sale now and for all the details about this production, visit our website.

 

Two Endless Minutes: School’s Theatre Festival

Last month we held our annual School’s Theatre Festival, putting together a final production in our studio with four different school groups. We thought we’d share this note from the director with you!

Two Endless Minutes – School’s Theatre Festival
Director’s Note

Two boroughs, four schools, 94 young collaborators, nine sessions, 23 scenes, one play, Two Endless Minutes.

 Two Endless Minutes is the product of collaboration between myself, playwright Stewart Melton and a company of 94 young theatre-makers from four different schools across two boroughs.

Over nine sessions, we’ve led our open and playful young collaborators from the initial ideas through to writing their mini plays using a series of tasks, challenges, missions and adventures reflecting the stages of professional theatre making.

They’ve boldly brainstormed the possibilities for – and the particular quality of – two minutes, assumed roles as Creative Cartographers mapping familiar places and unknown territory and become Story Scavengers in a search of the extraordinary in the ordinary, around their school. The scenes, the characters, the voices, the places and the questions of Two Endless Minutes were all borne out of this process, out of their mouths and out of their imaginations, brought together into one play by the sensitive writing and dramaturgy of Stewart Melton.

Each of the four schools has worked independently from – but in empathy with – each other. Separately, they’ve researched, developed and written their plays before swapping scripts and rehearsing each other’s work. Our full company met for the first time the week before performing on the Maria stage at the Young Vic.

The young people led the process and the play; they are the experts of their world. In Two Endless Minutes, they guide you around the school landscape, their lives and their hopes and fears.

Natalie Ibu (Director of Two Endless Minutes)

To find out more about the work we do in our Taking Part department, click here. 

Interested in supporting work like this? Find out how you can support us here.

Audience reaction to ‘Above Me The Wide Blue Sky’

Above Me The Wide Blue Sky arrives at the Young Vic this week after runs in Lancaster and Coventry – creators of the piece Fevered Sleep asked their audiences on tour what they thought. Here’s some of their comments!

“Simple, sensual and effective”

“Wonderful how you’ve created instant nostalgia for the audience”

“Sympathetic skyscapes and the music of birdsong – A symphony of life”

“It was like a mirror poem and quite spellbinding” 

You can also hear more reactions in this video created by Warwick Arts Centre.

Buy your tickets here!