'JANE WENHAM' to Launch UK Tour in September

Ria Parry will direct the world premiere of Rebecca Lenkiewicz's play Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern for Out of Joint, Watford Palace Theatre and Arcola Theatre. It will tour from September to November 2015, including two weeks of rural touring in association with Eastern Angles, before playing at London's Arcola Theatre in January 2016.

Jane Wenham is inspired by events in a Hertfordshire village in the early 1700s. After years without persecution, a "witch" is hanged, and the villagers fear the return of witchery. The dead woman's adolescent daughter, Ann, is taken care of by Jane Wenham, the local cunning woman. Days later, when a tragedy occurs, Jane is accused of witchcraft, and Ann leads the charge against her.

Lenkiewicz's beautifully-written play is alive with the mysteries of sex, nature and the supernatural, and blasts society's hunger to find - and create - witches.

The play began life as a research workshop supported by the University of Hertfordshire (an Out of Joint Associate University) and the National Theatre Studio.

Max Stafford Clark said 'I heard the story of Jane Wenham when I was teaching at the University of Hertfordshire, and I met a historian, Owen Davies, who specialises in the modern history of witchcraft. He told me about the nearby village of Walkern, which had been the site of one of the last successful witch prosecutions three hundred years ago. He joined Rebecca and I and a team of actors for a two week workshop at the National Theatre Studio, and also out researching in Hertfordshire.

From Jane Wenham's sad story, Rebecca has created a haunting and resonant play, rooted in history yet full of her own rich invention. I can't wait to see it brought to the stage by Ria Parry, whose previous successes include what many thought one of the finest productions of Caryl Churchill's Fen, and two Fringe First-winning plays'

Rebecca Lenkiewicz won a BAFTA this year for co-writing Ida, which also won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. She won a Fringe First for her play Soho: A Tale of Table Dancers, and her plays The Night Season and Her Naked Skin both premiered at the National Theatre.

Ria Parry is Co-Artistic Director of Iron Shoes, for whom her productions include Mad About The Boy (Edinburgh Fringe and National Tour - Fringe First Winner 2009), Caryl Churchill's Fen at the Finborough Theatre, and Crush (Fringe First winner 2011). Other work includes Albion (Bush Theatre), On Golden Pond (Salisbury Playhouse) and The Winter's Tale Re-imagined (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.) Ria was awarded the Leverhulme Bursary for Emerging Directors in 2010/11, becoming Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio.

Casting to be announced.

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