HAMPSTEAD THEATRE ANNOUNCES FOUR WORLD PREMIERES FOR AUTUMN 2022 BY RICHARD EYRE, RONA MUNRO, GEORGINA BURNS & JOE WHITE

The Snail House, written and directed by Richard Eyre, will run from 7 September until 15 October. Former Artistic Director of the National Theatre and, writer and regular adaptor of other people’s work for the stage, The Snail House is Eyre’s first completely original play.

Sir Neil Marriot, familiar from TV as a government medical advisor, is hosting his own lavish birthday party. But, amidst the oak panelling and the champagne his family are at one another’s throats - and there’s something deeply unsettling about one of the caterers …  

 

Mary, a new political thriller by Rona Munro, directed by Hampstead Theatre’s Artistic Director, Roxana Silbert, will run from 22 October until 26 November. Mary is a standalone play but also a companion piece to The James Plays cycle, winner of the Evening Standard and Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards in 2014.

1567. James Melville, a brilliant diplomat, is one of the most loyal servants of Mary, troubled Queen of Scots. Amidst the political turmoil of the times, the crimes he has witnessed have shaken him. Change is clearly coming, but at what price?

Mary is a T.S. Eliot Foundation commission.

 

In the theatre’s Downstairs space, Ravenscourt by Georgina Burns, directed by Hampstead Theatre’s Associate Director, Tessa Walker, will run from 23 September until 29 October. Georgina Burns is an alumnus of Hampstead Theatre’s INSPIRE course for emerging playwrights and Ravenscourt is her first produced full-length play.  

Lydia is a mental-health professional determined to make a difference. But as she settles into her new job at Ravenscourt she starts to realise how high the odds are stacked against real change. Maybe the cynics are right: the system is broken and nobody cares…

 

Blackout Songs by Joe White, directed by Guy Jones, will also run Downstairs, from 4 November until 10 December. Joe White is a former Channel 4 Playwriting Award-winner whose play Mayfly (Orange Tree) won Most Promising New Playwright at the OffWestEnd Awards in 2019.  

A chance encounter at an AA meeting results in a crazy passionate bond… But later, once they’re drinking again, they both have this feeling that they might have been here before, together… They should really get sober and figure it out. Maybe after one last quick drink…

Blackout Songs is a T.S. Eliot Foundation commission.

 

The full cast and creative team of all plays will be announced in due course.

 

Priority Booking opens Wednesday 6 July at 10.30am. Public Booking opens on Tuesday 12 July at 10.30am.

 

Roxana Silbert, Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre, said:

“I am delighted to announce four new plays, two of them by first time writers: one by Georgina Burns, a play written during the pandemic on our new writers’ programme and one by esteemed director Richard Eyre. Both have come to playwriting later in life and we are proud to have supported them on their new journeys. Alongside them, two world premieres: one by Rona Munro - part of the James Cycle - which through six plays tackle the history of Scotland; and Joe White whose beautiful, shape-shifting play about love, art and alcohol, is another Hampstead commission”

 

Hampstead Theatre is currently staging the world premiere of The Fellowship, an electrifying, hilarious and gripping new play by Roy Williams, directed by Paulette Randall, until 23 July. Set in modern Britain, the cast comprises of Rosie Day, Ethan Hazzard, Trevor Laird, Suzette Llewellyn, Yasmin Mwanza and Cherrelle Skeete.

Following its Olivier Award nomination and sold-out run earlier in the year, Nell Leyshon’s Folk, directed by Roxana Silbert is running at Hampstead Downstairs until 30 July. This beautiful new play with songs features the original cast; Ben Allen, Sasha Frost, Mariam Haque and Simon Robson.

 

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