Amelia Jane Hankin News

Mercury Theatre Colchester today announces the full cast and creative team for the world premiere of the 2017 Mercury Playwrighting Prize winner - Oliver Bennett's Europe After The Rain. Cara Nolan directs James Alexandrou (Will), Simon Haines (Max), Natasha Kafka (Marta) and Anna Koval (Yana) and the creative team includes Amelia Jane Hankin (Designer), Kiaran Kesby (Lighting Designer), Nuno Santos (Sound Designer) and Craig Hamblyn (Fight Director). Europe After the Rain opens in the Mercury Studio Theatre on the 31 May with previews from 25 May and runs until 9 June.

Like other young men, Jack, a 25-year-old with a learning disability, has needs and desires, and his parents don't want him to feel left out of significant life experiences, so they decide to hire a prostitute to arrange their son's first sexual encounter. Julia will slip into the cracks of a marriage on the verge of an invisible crisis, and in the end she will do a lot more than just help Jack.

Punts is a hilarious and moving new play by Sarah Page about a young man's sexual awakening and its effect on those who orchestrated it. Drawn from the playwright's interviews with sex workers, Punts - produced by Kuleshov Theatre (BU21, Cans) - explores love in all its complex and contradictory forms.