Emma Rice Brings Her New Company's Show WISE CHILDREN to Chester

Novelist Angela Carter's Wise Children is being brought to the Storyhouse stage next spring in a new theatrical production by 'visionary' director Emma Rice.

The carnivalesque tale of the tangled fortunes of two theatrical families is packed with pairs of twins and mistaken identities, and was inspired by the Bard's greatest comedies.

Now former Shakespeare's Globe artistic director Rice (Romantics Anonymous, Tristan & Yseult, The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk and Brief Encounter) is bringing her unique, exuberantly impish vision to the late English writer's great final novel.

It's April 23, Shakespeare's birthday.

In Brixton, Nora and Dora Chance - twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river - are celebrating their 70th birthday. Over the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation Melchior Hazard turns 100 on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he's still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior is their real father after all...

A big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and heartbreak, Wise Children - adapted and directed by Rice - is a celebration of showbusiness, family, forgiveness and hope. Expect show girls and Shakespeare, sex and scandal, music, mischief and mistaken identity....and butterflies by the thousand.

Wise Children is also the name of Rice's new theatre company. It aims to create landmark work with exceptional artists, challenge outmoded theatre touring models, train the next generation of creative practitioners, and discover the creative spaces of the future.

This Old Vic and Wise Children production, being staged at Storyhouse from March 19 - 23 2019, is co-produced by the Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Oxford Playhouse and York Theatre Royal.

Storyhouse artistic director Alex Clifton said today: "Emma Rice is a visionary theatre director. She's one of the best there is working today, and the launch of her new company is internationally significant for the arts world. Her work brings delight and joy to audiences through riotous spectacle, heartfelt storytelling, music and breath-taking leaps of imagination.

"It's very special for Storyhouse to bring this company to the region and begin a long relationship between Wise Children and our audiences. We're really proud to welcome Emma and Wise Children to Chester."