Casting Announced For GRENFELL: VALUE ENGINEERING - SCENES FROM THE INQUIRY

Casting is announced for the not-for-profit production of Grenfell: Value Engineering - Scenes from The Inquiry, which will run at the recently renovated Tabernacle in Notting Hill from 13 October - 13 November and Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 16 - 20 November.

Olivier Award-nominee Ron Cook (Mr Selfridge, The Witcher and The Salisbury Poisonings on TV, and Faith Healer and Girl from the North Country on stage) plays Richard Millett QC, counsel to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, leading a cast including Daniel Betts, Sam Buchanan, Sally Giles, Polly Kemp, Phill Langhorne,Tim Lewis, David Michaels, David Robb, Howard Ward, Thomas Wheatley and Rosie Wyatt. Further casting to be announced in due course.

Grenfell: Value Engineering - Scenes from The Inquiry is based entirely on the words of those involved in the current Inquiry, and sets out to discover why the devastating fire of 14 June 2017 happened after the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, and who was responsible for the deaths of 72 people.

The play is edited by Richard Norton-Taylor and directed by Nicolas Kent, re-uniting the multi award-winning pair following their previous critically acclaimed collaborations on verbatim inquiry plays including: The Colour of Justice - The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Half the Picture - The Scott Arms to Iraq Inquiry, Bloody Sunday - Scenes from the Saville Inquiry and The Great Game - Afghanistan. The assistant director is CJ Lloyd Webley, reconstruction of the Inquiry room is by Miki Jablkowska and Matthew Eagland, lighting design by Matthew Eagland, video design by Jack Fone, sound design by Andy Graham, costume design by Carly Brownbridge and casting by Amy Ball CDG. The production is executive produced by Peter Huntley and general managed by Smart Entertainment.

Ron Cook said: "I'm so pleased and proud to be part of Grenfell: Value Engineering. An incisive, insightful and important play. I can only hope it will help to clarify our understanding of the causes of this terrible and unnecessary fire, and make some contribution towards avoiding a similar tragedy in the future."

Richard Norton-Taylor said: "What has emerged from the inquiry is an extraordinary catalogue of greed, fraud, cheating and lying, secret fixing of fire tests on their products, subtle layers of corruption and racism, fatal cost-cutting, casual indifference, and practices which one young company executive called "completely unethical" and which some even joked about... The evidence in the Grenfell Inquiry reflects many of the problems deeply embedded in contemporary British society. I believe that presenting it to a theatre audience will lead to a wider understanding of the story behind a fire whose repercussions will be felt for many years."

Nicolas Kent said: "The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is vitally important in getting to the truth and holding to account those who were responsible for the disastrous refurbishment of the Tower. We are grateful to The Tabernacle and The Playground Theatre for helping us bring this dramatisation of the Grenfell Inquiry to the local community."

To support the community surrounding Grenfell Tower, The Playground Theatre is producing VALUED, a local education and community programme that aims to foster meaningful engagement around important themes of the play - including human rights, social conditions, and injustice. Through VALUED, The Playground will deliver a special curriculum of in-school workshops and performance opportunities for local students ages 14-18, as well as learning and engagement resources for social and voluntary organisations serving the local community.

Anthony Biggs, Co-Artistic Director, The Playground Theatre, said: "Our connection to the community in W10 is deeply personal, and began even before we opened our doors as a theatre. The Grenfell Tower Fire broke out while The Playground was still being built, and we were able to mobilise quickly then to create trauma-informed resources to support our friends, neighbours, and families. Our commitment to support the healing and recovery of our community through meaningful engagement remains at the core of our mission."

Major supporters of Grenfell: Value Engineering - Scenes from The Inquiry are the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Nimax Theatres.

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