A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON Comes to the New Theatre in August

A Very Expensive Poison comes to the New Theatre in August. Performances run 15 August - 16 September 2023.

London, 2006. A brazen political assassination is carried out in broad daylight. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy, drinks green tea laced with radioactive poison.

Subsequent investigations uncover a conspiracy generated from the very heart of the Russian government, and a murder probably approved by President Vladimir Putin.

In this award-winning play, based on the facts as laid out by the investigative journalist Luke Harding in his book of the same name, acclaimed writer Lucy Prebble tells a complex story of espionage and mystery.

On a whirlwind journey from Moscow to Mayfair, it follows Litvinenko as he investigates his own death, and his wife Marina’s quest for justice, in the face of Russian corruption and British vacillation.

With a dazzling mix of vaudeville, thriller, romance and tragedy, this astonishing and imaginative drama deep dives into the terrifying world of the new Cold War.

Winner: 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

“As tender as it is clever, as incensed as it is inventive.” The Times

Having presented the Australian premiere of Lucy Prebble's play ENRON a decade ago, New Theatre is thrilled to now be producing A Very Expensive Poison. She won the George Devine Award in 2003 with her first play, The Sugar Syndrome, which marked the start of an illustrious career writing for both stage and television. Most recently (2018 - 2023), Prebble was Co-Executive Producer and writer on the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning HBO drama Succession, for which she also won a WGA Award.

We welcome director Margaret Thanos to helm this production, returning to New Theatre after being Assistant Director on Animal Farm in 2020. Margaret's most recent directing credits include: A Grain of Sand by Declan Coyle (KXT Panimo Pandemonium Festival/Queen Hades Productions) and Labyrinth by Beth Steel (Flight Path Theatre/Dream Plane Productions).

Of A Very Expensive Poison, Margaret says: "After reading this play, I immediately called up New Theatre's Artistic Director, Lou Fischer, and told her that I HAD to be the one to direct it! This play is so much fun to explore, and offers up a smorgasbord of theatrical styles: dance, musical numbers, puppets and everything in between. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll leave the theatre with a fire in your belly.

"We think that people like Putin, and events like this, could never happen to us. Not in the golden land of Oz. Not here. But they do. Every single day there is a person being persecuted for their desire to speak out. It might not look like expensive poison in a tea cup. Or back room meetings with Russian mafia men. But make absolutely no mistake. The West and its so-called democratic ideals are in deep danger.

And what are we doing about it? We're going to the theatre and hmm-ing and hah-ing about how terrible the world is. The world is not supposed to be terrible. Telling the truth is supposed to be safe. Not just in the 'free' Western world, but everywhere. 

Maybe theatre can't change the world, but I'll be damned if I don't f-ing try!"

The creative team includes Aloma Barnes (set and costume designer), Jasmin Borsovszky (lighting designer), Sam Cheng (sound designer/composer), Diana Paola Alvarado (movement director), Felicity Jurd (accent coach), Jess Zlotnick (assistant director), and an ensemble of sixteen actors!