HORNIMAN'S CHOICE Begins This Month at Finborough Theatre

Commissioned by the Finborough Theatre, Horniman's Choice brings together four plays by the leading figures of the 'Manchester School' of playwrights - Harold Brighouse, Stanley Houghton and Allan Monkhouse, all originally championed by Annie Horniman, owner of Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, the first regional repertory theatre in Britain. Horniman's Choice runs at the Finborough Theatre, playing Sunday and Monday evenings and Tuesday matinees from Sunday, 27 September 2015 (Press Night: Monday, 28 September 2015 at 7.30pm).

THE PRICE OF COAL by Harold Brighouse
1909. The mines. Collier Jack Tyldesley heads off at 5.30am for another day's hard graft at the coalface. His lover, Mary Bradshaw, has promised to answer his marriage proposal when he returns home, but Jack's mother is haunted by premonitions of disaster. Risk is part of the job, but too often the cost of fuel outweighs the cost of the lives of men.

LONESOME LIKE by Harold Brighouse
1911. The mill. Sarah Ormerod has worked in a Lancashire mill for many years, but age and hard work have taken their toll. When she loses the use of her hands, she is condemned to spend the rest of her days in the workhouse, unless someone can help her. Without a welfare state, what happens to the elderly and disabled?

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW by Stanley Houghton
1914. The home. Christopher Battersby is a devout Christian, running his household in strict and obsessive accordance with the Old Testament. When his daughter runs off to London with an unsuitable man, he struggles with his faith and the limits of what he can forgive.

NIGHT WATCHES by Allan Monkhouse
1916. The trenches. A new orderly begins work on the night shift at a Red Cross hospital, only to find that two of the patients are more comically surprising and disruptive that originally seemed.

Playwright Harold Brighouse (1882-1958) remains best known for his 1916 classic Hobson's Choice. The story of how a tyrannical Lancashire boot maker is brought down to earth by his daughter and her simple husband, Hobson's Choice has been much revived and was last seen in London at The Young Vic in 2003. It was filmed by David Lean with Charles Laughton and John Mills, and even adapted into a ballet. Brighouse brought a new and groundbreaking style to British theatre, portraying the bleak and harsh lives of the working classes, but combining it with a unique Northern flavour and wit. He was a leading member of the 'Manchester School' of playwrights, along with well known Northern writers such as Stanley Houghton and Allan Monkhouse, a group of writers all largely based at Annie Horniman's Gaiety Theatre, Manchester. The Finborough Theatre revived Harold Brighouse's The Northerners in 2010.

Playwright Stanley Houghton (1881- 1913) was born in Ashton-upon-Mersey, Sale, Cheshire. Educated at Manchester Grammar School, he went into his father's cotton business where he worked until the success of Hindle Wakes in 1912 allowed him to finally achieve his ambition to become a professional writer. He died just a year later of meningitis. One of the acclaimed 'Manchester School' of playwrights, championed by Annie Horniman of the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, and including such writers as Harold Brighouse and Allan Monkhouse, Houghton's other works include The Intrigues, The Reckoning ,The Dear Departed, Independent Means (recently revived by the Library Theatre, Manchester), The Younger Generation, The Master of the House, Fancy-Free, Trust the People and The Perfect Cure. The Finborough Theatre presented an acclaimed revival of Hindle Wakes in 2012 to mark the centenary of its world premiere.

Allan Monkhouse (1858-1936) was an English playwright, critic, essayist and novelist. He was born in Barnard Castle, County Durham. He worked in the cotton trade, in Manchester, and settled in Disley, Cheshire. From 1902 to 1932 he worked on The Manchester Guardian, writing also for the New Statesman. He began to write drama for the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, shortly after it was opened by Annie Horniman. His best known plays include Mary Broome and The Conquering Hero, both recently revived by the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond.

Director Anna Marsland directed the staged reading of One For All as part of Vibrant 2014 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights. She is currently Resident Director on the National Theatre's production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the West End. She trained on the MFA Theatre Directing course at Birkbeck College, and was a finalist for the 2013 JMK Award for Young Directors. Theatre includes Twelfth Night (Victoria Baths, Manchester), Masterclass Academy Showcase (Theatre Royal Haymarket), The Leonardo Question (The Rosemary Branch Theatre and Roxy Art House), Secret Heart, Road, All the Ordinary Angels, What the Butler Saw and Two (ADC Theatre). As Assistant Director, theatre includes The White Devil, The Roaring Girl (Royal Shakespeare Company), Hope Light and Nowhere (Underbelly Theatre), A Christmas Carol (New Vic Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent), Lady Windermere's Fan, Miss Julie, The Gatekeeper, Beautiful Thing and Good (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Othello (Rose Theatre, Bankside and Broadway Theatre, Barking) and Love and Money (Arts Educational School). As Text Assistant, theatre includes The Malcontent (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) and Henry VI: Parts I, II, and III (Shakespeare's Globe).

THEGREATWAR100 series is a new occasional series of works about - or written during - the Great War to be presented by the Finborough Theatre from 2014 to 2018 to commemorate the centenary of the First World War.

The cast is:
Jemma Churchill | Polly Livesey, Nurse and Martha Battersby
Trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Theatre includes My Name is Freda, Unearthed, Larksong, The Gift (New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme), 84 Charing Cross Road (Salisbury Playhouse), Hungry (National Tour), Factors Unseen (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Slaughterhouse Five (Everyman Theatre, Liverpool), Macbeth (London Bubble), Hamlet (Theatre Museum), Breaking The Code (English Theatre, Frankfurt), Noises Off (New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich), The Good Mother (Landor Theatre), Little Pieces of Gold (Theatre503), A Night in Provence (The Mill at Sonning), The Notebook of Trigorin (Northcott Theatre, Exeter), I'll Be Back Before Midnight (Theatre By the Lake, Keswick), The Boys From Hibernia (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry) and The Last Waltz (Gateway Theatre, Chester).
Film includes Deny Everything, Between Places, Burn The Clock, Beached and Desert Flower.
Television includes Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, Upstairs Downstairs, Waterloo Road, The Liquid Bomb Plot, Hollyoaks, Doctors, Jeckyll, Heartbeat, Holby City, Living It, Murder in Suburbia, Footballer's Wives, Crossroads, Midsomer Murders, Murder in Mind, Where There's Smoke, Kiss Me Kate, Red Dwarf, Dangerfield, Jonathan Creek, EastEnders and Waiting for God.
Radio includes Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Brief Lives, The Good Companions and Potting On.

Hannah Edwards | Mary Bradshaw, Mary Battersby and Emma Brierley
Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Theatre includes She Stoops to Conquer (Northern Broadsides), Inherit the Wind, I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire, 101 Dalmatians, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland (New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme), Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds), Country Music (Trafalgar Studios), Rumpole of the Bailey (Bath Literary Festival) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (London Palladium).
Film includes Alternative Voting and Flowers.
Television includes Call the Midwife, Being April, Life Begins and The Priory.
Radio includes The Chess Girls and Charley From Outside.

James Holmes | Orderly and Christopher Battersby
Trained at The Poor School.
Theatre includes Aladdin (Buxton Opera House), Romeo and Juliet, The Wind in the Willows, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre), Portia Coughlin, The List, Dear Aunty Elvis (Old Red Lion Theatre), Making Stalin Laugh (JW3 Theatre), @War, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, Present Tense: The Beginning, Present Tense: Just Us (Southwark Playhouse), Potholes, Talking in Bed (Theatre503), Rain Man (English Theatre, Frankfurt), The Lady in the Van, The Flint Street Nativity, Happy Now (Hull Truck Theatre), The Dumb Waiter (Guildhall Theatre, Derby), Relax (Warehouse Theatre, Croydon), Ignition: Paper Kite (Tristan Bates Theatre), The Country Wife (Bridewell Theatre), Measure for Measure, The Importance of Being Earnest (New Players Theatre), Twelfth Night (Ripley Castle Open Air Theatre) and the original production of Anorak of Fire (Edinburgh Festival, Arts Theatre and National Tour).
Film includes Lava.
Television include I Live With Models, Phoneshop, The Javone Prince Show, Miranda, Dani's House, Psychoville, How TV Ruined Your Life, Unwrapped with Miranda Hart, The Last Enemy, Love Soup, Big Brother's Bit On The Side, Coronation Street, Harry Hill's TV Burp, My Boy Jack, Gayle Tuesday - The Comeback, Doctors, The Bill, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Coked Up Britain, Open Wide, Peep Show, Jane Hall, The Catherine Tate Show, Spooks, My Hero, Rhona, Stop The World and The Office.
Radio includes Spike's Lookalikes, Peacefully in their Sleeps and Agatha Raisin.

Lewis Maiella | Jack Tyldesley, Second Soldier and Sam Horrocks
Trained at Arts Educational Schools London.
Theatre includes 1984, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, King Lear, A View from the Bridge and You Can Still Make A Killing (Arts Educational Schools London).
Film includes The Morning After.

Ursula Mohan | Ellen Tyldesley and Sarah Ormerod
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Outward Bound, Eyes Catch Fire, Trelawny Of The Wells, The Lower Depths and Online And Paranoid in the Sentimental City.
Trained at Webber Douglas.
Theatre includes The Veil (National Theatre), Women of Troy, Blood Wedding (The Steam Industry at the Scoop), King Lear (Union Theatre), Elegies (Criterion Theatre), Dad's Army Marches On (UK Tour), The Drowsy Chaperone (Upstairs at the Gatehouse), The Winter's Tale (Courtyard Theatre), Ala In Tango and Peter Brook's US (Royal Shakespeare Company), Making Tracks (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), Bevan (Sherman Cymru, Cardiff), Antigone (Greenwich Theatre), The Good Woman Of Setzuan (Hampstead Theatre), A Murder Is Announced (Vaudeville Theatre), Revenge (Royal Court Theatre), Othello (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park), The Cenci (Almeida Theatre), Bloody Mary (Theatre Royal Stratford East) and Scapino (The Young Vic).
Film includes The Bank Job and Friends Pictured Within.
Television includes Holby City and On The Buses.

Graham O'Mara | First Soldier, Edward Fielding and Reverend Frank Alleyne
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Hindle Wakes.
Theatre includes Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Wind in the Willows, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre), Sense and Sensibility (Watermill Theatre, Newbury), Cans (Theatre503), Alice (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Pedal Pusher, The Winter's Tale (Theatre Delicatessen), FOOD (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, National Tour and BAC), David Copperfield (National Tour), Sweet Love Remembered, Hamlet (Shakespeare's Globe), Bumps, Brother My Brother (Warehouse Theatre, Croydon), Born Angry (Etcetera Theatre), A Man of Letters (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), The Government Inspector, The Three Musketeers (The Young Vic), Romeo and Juliet (Wild Thyme), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds) and Emma (National Tour).
Television includes Friday Night Dinner, The Queen, Waterloo Road, Casualty and Silent Witness.

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