LJ Parkinson, Jennifer Jackson, and More Will Lead ELMET For Bradford City of Culture

The Javaad Alipoor Company has announced that LJ Parkinson, Jennifer Jackson, Gabriella Schmidt, Sean Jackson and Tom Varey will star in the world premiere of its brand new stage production, Elmet, as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture this autumn (22 October to 2 November).

Conceived and directed by founding Artistic Director, Javaad Alipoor, and based on the 2017 Booker Prize shortlisted novel by Fiona Mozley, Elmet is an explosive story of family and revenge set in the wilds of the West Riding.

At the centre of the story are Danny (played by LJ Parkinson) and Cathy (Jennifer Jackson), siblings living apart from the world on a land “made of myths” with their towering bare-knuckle boxer Daddy. Cathy is her father's daughter, simmering with rage and restlessness, the soles of her feet black from running barefoot through the woods. Danny is happiest indoors, devouring books, tea and teacakes with stylish Vivian (Gabriella Schmidt). For a time, their days in the little copse in Elmet are spent peacefully, cutting boughs to make bows and arrows, hunting skylarks, rolling cigarettes for Daddy. Then Price (Sean Jackson), the all-powerful landowner, and his son, Charlie (Tom Varey), enter their world and with them a great reckoning that threatens to smash apart everything the trio hold dear.

The acting ensemble will perform alongside Mercury Music Prize nominated and Peaky Blinders featured folk pioneers, The Unthanks, who have penned original music for this gutsy, muscular staging of the blazing story of Cathy, Danny and Daddy told in The Javaad Alipoor Company's audacious and richly theatrical signature style.

LJ Parkinson (Danny) is an actor, performer and Drag King superstar - Louis Cyfer - the first Drag King to take the crown at DRAG IDOL UK and the first Drag King to lead a West End play. LJ's stage credits include: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare's Globe); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Royal Exchange); Cowbois (RSC and Royal Court); Death Drop and Death Drop 2: Back in the Habit (Trafalgar Theatre/Tuckshop). Their performance in Joan (Milk Presents) won ‘Best Performer' at The Stage Edinburgh Awards, a Scotsman Fringe First Award, ‘Best Performance' in the Mervyn Stutter Spirit of the Fringe Award and an OFFIE. In 2023, LJ was nominated at the UK Theatre Awards for Best Supporting Performance for Modest (Middle Child and Milk Presents). Screen credits include Kaos (Netflix), The Man Who Fell to Earth (Paramount+), and Strike: Lethal White (BBC).

Jennifer Jackson (Cathy) is an award-winning British-Bolivian theatre-maker, actor and movement director/choreographer. Her theatre credits include: WrestleLadsWrestle (BAC, HOME Manchester, Sheffield Crucible, Cambridge Junction); Endurance (BAC, HOME Manchester, Sheffield Crucible, and shortlisted for the prestigious Stückemarkt at the Theatertreffen Berliner Festspiele 2022); Neverland (BAC & tour); Brighton Rock (Pilot Theatre); All That is Solid Melts into Air (Tangled Feet for The National Theatre); Fixer (Ovalhouse Theatre); and Blowing (Southwark Playhouse). Screen credits include Hulu's The Great and Hope for Clean Break.

Gabriella Schmidt (Vivian/Martha/Ensemble) is an actor, dancer, writer and movement director who graduated from the Central School of Ballet then went on to train at the Oxford School of Drama. Her theatre credits include: Juniper and Jules (Soho Theatre); Wozzeck (Festival D'Aix-en-Provence); Vitamin D (UK tour); Weimar Nightfall/The Seven Deadly Sins (LA Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall, LA); The Rake's Progress (Festival D'Aix/Stanislavsky Music Theatre); The Magic Flute (London Coliseum); Treading Water (CAST Doncaster); Halbwelt Kultur (Jermyn Street); Hutch (Riverside Studios); ‘Ave It! (The Old Vic Tunnels); and Miss Julie (King's Head). Film credits include: the Scottish BAFTA-nominated film, Take Your Partners (Arpeggio Pictures), and Being Nice (Carsick Productions).

Sean Jackson's (Price/Ewart/Ensemble) theatre credits include numerous collaborations with director, Katie Mitchell, for The National Theatre including: Waves (also Lincoln Center, New York), Beauty & The Beast, A Dream Play, Iphigenia at Aulis, The Seagull, and Ivanov, as well as Say It With Flowers for Hampstead Theatre. Further stage credits include: Mrs Dalloway (Arcola); Richard II and The Wild Duck (Donmar); Hamlet (West End and Broadway); Antony & Cleopatra and Holy Warriors (Shakespeare's Globe); and Henry V (Royal Exchange). Sean's screen appearances include: Da Vinci's Demons and The Fear.

Tom Varey (Charlie/Ensemble) trained at RADA. His theatre credits include playing William Shakespeare in Erica Whyman's production of Hamnet (RSC, West End and international tour); The Glass Menagerie (Yard Theatre); A Taste of Honey (Trafalgar Studios); Death Watch (The Print Room); One Arm (Southwark Playhouse); and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Liverpool Everyman). On screen, Tom played Jack Morris in BBC One's Ridley Road, Steve O'Callaghan in Amazon's Fifteen-Love, PC Stuart O'Connell in Channel 4's No Offence, and Cley Cerwyn in HBO's Game of Thrones. Film credits include The Boys in the Boat (MGM, dir. George Clooney) and Pond Life (Open Palm Films).