Northern Broadsides to Premiere FOR LOVE OR MONEY; UK Tour to Open at Viaduct Theatre Halifax in September

Northern Broadsides and the playwright, poet and novelist Blake Morrison are set to once again join forces, this time to stage the World premiere of For Love or Money, Morrison's new adaptation of Alain-Rene Lesage's rarely performed eighteenth-century comedy Turcaret.

Directed by and featuring Northern Broadsides artistic director Barrie Rutter, the new adaptation opens at the Viaduct Theatre in Halifax from 15-23 September before embarking on a nationwide tour till 2 December.

Set in a small town in Yorkshire, a beautiful widow is being wooed by two suitors. Fresh from the City and with endless money to dispose of, the older one showers her with gifts - which the younger (handsome, impecunious, an inveterate gambler) wants to put to better use.

But money's a slippery commodity and all is not quite as it seems. Throw in a bailiff, a drunkard, a vamp, a second-hand clothes dealer and two upwardly mobile servants, and the complications multiply.

This will only be the second time Turcaret has been performed on the British stage. The play received its British premiere at the Gate Theatre in 1988 when it was translated by John Norman.

A great supporter of the work of Northern Broadsides, Blake Morrison has translated and adapted six hugely successful plays which were all commissioned and performed by Northern Broadsides:The Cracked Pot in 1996 (an adaptation of Heinrich Von Kleist's Der Zerbrochene Krug); Sophocles' Oedipus in 2001,Antigone in 2003; The Man with Two Gaffers (a version of Carlo Goldoni's comedy The Servant of Two Masters) in 2005; Lisa's Sex Strike, based on Lysistrata in 2017 and most recently We Are Three Sisters in 2011.

Blake Morrison is a poet, novelist and journalist, best known for two family memoirs and a study of the Bulger case. His publications have included And When Did You Last See Your Father? (which was also made into a film starring Oscar winner Colin Firth), As If, Selected Poems, The Justification of Johann Gutenberg, and Things My Mother Never Told Me.

Blake Morrison said about the forthcoming production: "It's 21 years now since my first collaboration with Barrie Rutter, The Cracked Pot - an adaptation of a Kleist play in which (as well as directing) he took the leading role. By my count there've been seven more collaborations since, with adaptations of plays written in German, Italian, Russian and Ancient Greek - plus one, in Geordie, that required only minor adjustments for it to be Yorkshire-fied. That's been the pattern: wherever and whenever the original play is set, I try to render it in a language that's true to Rutter's allegiance to northern speech. Instead of RP, it becomes NBI - Northern Broadsides Idiom

Lesage's play was first performed over 300 years ago, in 1709. At the time, during the reign of Louis XIV, the monarchy delegated the duty of tax-gathering to rich financiers, those so-called tax-farmers, who exploited the poor and made themselves huge profits in the process. The establishment hated the play and it was withdrawn after only seven performances. But its satire on capitalistic ruthlessness hit home."

For Love or Money will be designed by Jessica Worrall (When We Are Married, Northern Broadsides) with lighting by Tim Skelly (A Government Inspector, Northern Broadsides).

The production will open at Viaduct Theatre Halifax from the 15-23 September and will then tour to West Yorkshire Playhouse; Lawrence Batley Theatre Huddersfield; Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds; Rose Theatre Kingston; New Vic Theatre, Newcastle -Under-Lyme; Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough; Liverpool Playhouse and York Theatre Royal.

Need more UK Regional Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...