Photos: PARTY SEASON World Premiere And National Tour- First Look

Production photos have been released for the world premiere and national tour of Party Season ahead of its opening night at Royal & Derngate, Northampton. 

The Wardrobe Ensemble’s latest play is a razor-sharp new comedy about privilege, party rings and the pressures of being a parent. It is a sugar-fuelled, bobbin-winding fever dream where class identities collide, social niceties unravel, and underslept parents do their best to hold it all together when three children’s parties take place across one weekend. 

Party Season has its World Premiere in Northampton as part of the theatre’s Made in Northampton season ahead of a UK tour. It will run until Saturday 11 April with a Press Night tonight before touring to Oxford, Worthing, Salford and Bristol.

Long-term collaborators with Royal & Derngate, the multi-award-winning creators of The Last of the Pelican Daughters and most recently, Mog’s Christmas are also celebrating their 15th anniversary this year. Founded in 2011 The Wardrobe Ensemble’s first production, RIOT at the National Theatre’s Shed was heralded as the dawn of a new age for British theatremaking. Closely followed by 1972: The Future of Sex and Education, Education, Education which subsequently transferred to the West End, the collective of nine who devise all their work as a group quickly gained a name for their energetic and irreverent plays that dissect the twenty-first century experience.

Party Season is co-directed by Royal & Derngate’s Artistic Director (and Wardrobe Ensemble founding member) Jesse Jones (Top Gs Like Me, Breaking the Code) and The Wardrobe Ensemble’s Helena Seneca (Mog’s Christmas, Royal & Derngate). The cast includes Wardrobe Ensemble members Tom England, Jesse Meadows and Ben Vardy (all seen most recently in Mog’s Christmas),  James Newton (Moby Dick, Simple8 in association with Royal & Derngate), and Kerry Lovell (The Last of the Pelican Daughters, Royal & Derngate). Other cast members are Jacade Simpson (Get Up, Stand Up, West End) and Fowzia Madar (Henry V, Insane Root Theatre at Temple Church).

The Set and Costume Designer is  Bronia Housman (The Wizard of Oz, Salisbury Playhouse), the Lighting Designer is Chris Swain (Kin, Gecko Theatre Company), the Sound Designer is Beth Duke (The Jolly Christmas Postman, Royal & Derngate), and Tom Brennan, another founding member of The Wardrobe Ensemble, is Dramaturg for the production

Photo Credit: Paul Blakemore