David Fielder and Nigel Hastings Lead AND THEN COME THE NIGHTJARS, Beginning Tonight at Theatre503

David Fielder and Nigel Hastings will star in the first show in Theatre503's autumn season, And Then Come The Nightjars by Bea Roberts. The play will run today 2nd - Saturday 26th September 2015 with press night slated for Monday 7th September at 7.45 p.m.

And Then Come The Nightjars is a deeply affecting examination of the crisis caused by the Foot and Mouth epidemic of 2001. Set in the rural West Country, it shows how the damage is still evident on the landscape ten years on.

Royal Shakespeare Company veteran, David Fielder (All's Well That Ends Well, Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It (RSC)) will be playing Michael, who owns a farm in the small South Devon village of Ashwalden. Nigel Hastings (Othello, Henry VI Parts 1 - 3 (Shakespeare's Globe), Journey's End (Duke of York's)) will be joining him as Jeff, a local vet who develops an unlikely friendship with Michael. Amidst a crisis that saw the slaughter of four million animals and the postponement of a general election, the enduring friendship between these two men adds an aching tenderness to the intensely distressing narrative.

This play is one of the two winners of Theatre503's inaugural international Playwriting Award and was selected from over 1600 submissions. It will be directed by Theatre503's Artistic Director, Paul Robinson.

Bea Roberts is currently on commission with the BBC, has had work on at the Tobacco Factory, Lyric Hammersmith and Bristol Old Vic and her most recent play was the award-winning Infinity Pool.

IF YOU GO:

And Then Come The Nightjars

Wednesday 2nd - Saturday 26th September 2015, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.45pm; Sunday, 5pm

1 hour 30 minutes (no interval)

Ages 12+

Theatre503, The Latchmere, 503 Battersea Park Road, London SW11 3BW

Theatre503 is located on above the Latchemere Pub on the corner of Latchmere Road and Battersea Park Road. The nearest underground stations are Sloane Square (on the Bakerloo and Northern lines then bus 319), South Kensington (on the Bakerloo, Northern, Circle and District lines) then bus 49 or 345, and Vauxhall (on the Northern and Piccadilly lines) then bus 34. The nearest rail station is Clapham Junction.

Box Office Tickets are available priced £15 (£12 concessions); Pay What You Can Sundays

Available from Theatre503 Box Office and theatre503.com, 020 7978 7040.

Bea Roberts - Bea Roberts is a west country writer who grew up in a variety of pretty but oddly named villages on the periphery of Dartmoor. Her credits include Infinity Pool; A Modern Re-telling of Madame Bovary (Tobacco Factory Theatres, The Bike Shed Theatre & Plymouth Theatre Royal), Scoop (Lyric Hammersmith UK tour) and Nights With Dolly Henderson (Box of Tricks at The Salisbury Playhouse, The Bike Shed Theatre & Bolton Octagon). In addition to writing plays, Bea has also written and performed sketches, storytelling pieces and stand-up comedy. She currently has work in development with Up In Arms, Pins and Needles productions, the Bush theatre and BBC Comedy.

Paul Robinson - Paul is Artistic Director of Theatre503. His recent productions of A Handful of Stars and Land of Our Fathers, both at Trafalgar Studios, received 4 and 5 star reviews in The Guardian, Times, Independent, Telegraph and Time Out and a total of nine OffWestEnd award nominations including Best Director.

He is a fervent advocate of new writing and has developed new plays at many of the country's leading theatres. Having graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he received an Arts Council Bursary to The Manchester Royal Exchange. He was further selected to attend the National Theatre's Advanced Directors' Course and was a Staff Director at The National Theatre for three years.

For Theatre503: And Then Come The Nightjars, A Handful of Stars, Land of Our Fathers, The Life of Stuff, Desolate Heaven, Life for Beginners, The Swallowing Dark, Salt Meets Wound, They Have Oak Trees In North Carolina (503/Radio4), The Lifesavers (Colchester/TMA Award Nomination), Manor House (Latitude Festival), Porn: The Musical (Best New Musical Award, The Offies), Epic (Latitude Festival) and The Charming Man (Best Director nomination, The Offies).

Other theatre credits include: Big Sean, Mikey and Me (Pleasance, Edinburgh), Falstaff (Cottesloe / Platform), Duck Variations (Olivier / Platform), Hello and Goodbye (ETT/Trafalgar Studios), Breakfast with Mugabe (Ustinov Bath Theatre Royal), Who Killed Mr Drum? (Riverside Studios), World's End (Pleasance/Trafalgar Studios) and the West End transfer of Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll.

David Fielder - David comes from a small cotton town in Lancashire called Todmorden. He trained in London at The Central School in 1970 and since then has performed over 500 roles in the UK and around the world, including spending several seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon. He won The Manchester Evening News Award for his performance as Vladimir in Waiting For Godot at The Library Theatre, and Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice at The Bolton Octagon Theatre. He has recently returned from performing in Hamlet at The Gdansk Shakespeare Festival and will be performing excerpts from Beckett's novel Company with the music of Phillip Glass at The Manchester Literary Festival in October.

Nigel Hastings - Nigel is from Preston, Lancashire and moved to Somerset as a teenager where he had his first acting experiences at Yeovil Youth Theatre and Somerset Youth Theatre. He went on to train as an actor at LAMDA. He has always had a particular interest in new writing and has appeared in many premieres of new plays including Gone (Edinburgh Festival and New Ambassadors West End) What Falls Apart (Live Theatre, Newcastle ) Kindertransport (Soho Theatre and Vaudeville West End) Gravity (Birmingham Rep) The Lemon Princess (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Jerusalem Syndrome (Soho Theatre). Nigel has been part of the The Wrestling School ensemble for many years and has worked with Howard Barker on premieres of many of his plays. He is also a founder member of Factory Theatre and appeared in their acclaimed experimental Hamlet as well The Seagull and Round Two.