Jermyn Street Theatre's Winter Season of 21st Anniversary Year to Feature IVY & JOAN and THE LAST OF THE DE MULLINS

Following this Autumn's sell-out 1930s programme, Jermyn Street Theatre's Artistic Director Anthony Biggs announces a season of two premieres and a revival to kick off the theatre's twenty-first anniversary year. Comprising three plays and running from January to April, the line up is made up James Hogan's two works Ivy & Joan, The Last of The De Mullins by Edwardian playwright St John Hankin and The Heart of Things by the writer of the acclaimed The Art of Concealment, Giles Cole.

From 6th to 24h January (press night 8th January) the theatre presents James Hogan's double bill Ivy & Joan - Two intimate, funny and heartbreaking tales of love and loss starring Lynne Miller and Jack Klaff. Late in life two women start new lives and leave home. But where is home? Did they ever really have one? Ivy & Joan never meet. They do not know each other. They have nothing in common except a lifetime spent without love. Ivy, a redundant waitress, clings to her memories. Joan, an amateur painter, travels to Venice, the city of dreams, but there her dreams end. Lost in loneliness, both women can still smile. But what lies hidden beyond a brave face? Playwright James Hogan's work has been performed at various London fringe venues including the Gate Theatre, The Cockpit, The Old Red Lion, and The King's Head. He founded Oberon Books in 1986 championing plays by unknown writers and publishing them in high quality editions.

Following Ivy & Joan, from 3rd to 28th February, Stephen McGill and Joel Marvin present The Last of the De Mullins. Set in the Edwardian England of 1908, the work is startlingly modern in its outlook. As the suffragette movement grows, one woman, Janet De Mullins, defies her family and the traditions of the age, rejoicing in being a working mother and refusing to be tied to the institution of marriage. But her independence threatens the family line. The Last of the De Mullins first premiered in 1908 at the Haymarket Theatre in London. This production, directed by Joshua Stamp-Simon and designed by Victoria Johnstone, will be the play's first professional staging in Britain since 1909. Its author St John Hankin, also a Times theatre critic, has been described as the comic bridge between Wilde and Coward and a contemporary and admired colleague of Shaw.

Continuing the mix of new work and a revival, the season ends with Close Quarter's premiere of The Heart of Things by Giles Cole from 3rd to 28th March. Over a weekend in May 2010, in the aftermath of the last general election, the political parties are wrangling over who will form the coalition government. Meanwhile, in a village near the Norfolk coast, a disillusioned English teacher and part-time election volunteer comes home for a rare visit and tries to put his life in order. However, the politics of family life can be every bit as vindictive and unpredictable as the Whitehall variety, and alliances can be made or broken without warning. The Heart of Things explores the themes of family, ambition, love and loyalty ... and birthdays. It examines the conundrum that exists in sexual identity and the 'minor disturbances' that have far-reaching effects in people's private lives. The play was written in tandem with The Art of Concealment - from the same creative team, which transferred the production to Riverside Studios from Jermyn Street Theatre in May 2012 following wide critical acclaim.

Anthony Biggs became Artistic Director of Jermyn Street Theatre in January 2013. His previous productions at the theatre include the recent Flowers of The Forest, The South African Season, The Potsdam Quartet, the UK premiere of Ibsen's St John's Night, Charles Morgan's The River Line, Ibsen's Little Eyolf and the revival of Frederick Lonsdale's On Approval.

Jermyn Street Theatre's current autumn season has comprised the acclaimed production of Flowers of the Forest by John Van Drutten, the first ever revival of Terence Rattigan's debut work - First Episode and the upcoming first production in sixty years of Mordaunt Shairp's controversial 1930s allusion to homosexuality - The Green Bay Tree. The season builds on the theatre's other recent successes, which include Maltby & Shire's Closer Than Ever, Arthur Wing Pinero's The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith, Steven Berkoff's Religion & Anarchy and the recent production of William Inge's Natural Affection.