Full Cast Set For TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY World Premiere at Southwark Playhouse
Michael Maloney, Yanexi Enriquez, and Rosalind Lailey star in Matthew Iliffe's production.
Troupe has announced the full casting for the world premiere of Simon Reade's new stage adaptation of Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton. Michael Maloney (Ernest Eccles), Alex Bhat (George Perry) and Lucy Gray (Prunella/Landlady/Waitress) join the previously announced Yanexi Enriquez (Jenny Maple), Rosalind Lailey (Ella Dawson) and Jordan Scowen (Bob). Based on Hamilton's classic novel set in late 1920s London, the play follows the lives of three lonely Londoners and their desire for connection and mutual obsession.
Matthew Iliffe's production opens at Southwark Playhouse Borough on 16 September, with previews from 10 September, and runs until 17 October 2026.
Troupe's Ashley Cook said. “I'm delighted to bring these actors together to explore the dynamics between these classic characters from Patrick Hamilton's great London trilogy; and I look forward to audiences seeing how Matthew Iliffe translates this to the stage at Southwark Playhouse Borough.”
London, 1929. In the seedy Midnight Bell pub, barman Bob dreams of becoming a writer, while barmaid Ella dreams of being with Bob. When Bob becomes obsessed with alluring prostitute Jenny Maple, he fritters his life's savings on trying to rescue her. But there is more to the intriguing Jenny than meets the eye…
Adapted from the classic novel by Patrick Hamilton, famed author of Gaslight, Rope and Hangover Square, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is an epic tale of three lonely Londoners looking for connection in the sprawling streets of the metropolis. Both darkly humorous and devastating, it is a love letter to 1920s Jazz Age London in all its grimy glory. An acclaimed television adaptation was broadcast on BBC Four in 2005, starring Sally Hawkins.
This world premiere of Simon Reade's sharp new stage play adaptation is directed by Off West End Award winner Matthew Iliffe (Bacon) and features an ensemble cast in a stylish period production, from the producer of Noël Coward's The Rat Trap and John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 and 2 (RSC/ Park Theatre).
Biographies
Alex Bhat plays George Perry. His theatre credits include Arms and the Man, Overruled, French Without Tears (Orange Tree Theatre), O, Island!, Ivy Tiller: Vicar's Daughter, Squirrel Killer (RSC), Sweet Bird of Youth (Chichester Festival Theatre), Dr Angelus (Finborough Theatre), and Henry V (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre). His television credits include Maigret, Outlander, Marie Antoinette, Shardlake, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Gentleman Jack, Des, Hanna, Devils, GameFace, War and Peace and Chewing Gum.
Yanexi Enriquez plays Jenny Maple. Her theatre credits include Atonement (Chichester Festival Theatre), Romans (Almeida Theatre), Ballet Shoes (National Theatre), My Uncle is Not Pablo Escobar, Cinderella (Brixton House), Drinking Concrete, Sense (Royal Court Theatre), Though This Be Madness (UK tour), and The Invincibles (Queen's Theatre Hornchurch). Her television credits include Hit Point, Twenty Twenty Six, and FBI: International.
Lucy Gray plays Prunella/Landlady/Waitress. Her theatre credits include Stereophonic (Duke of York's Theatre), Friction, Rapid Write Response: Milk and Gall (Theatre503), Myrninerest: The Inside/Outside Life of Madge Gill (The Royal Docks), Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) (Criterion Theatre, International tour), and The Gunpowder Plot (Tower Hill Vaults).
Rosalind Lailey plays Ella Dawson. Her theatre credits include The Comedy of Errors (Orange Tree Theatre), Summer 1954 (Theatre Royal Bath), The Other Boleyn Girl (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Oyster Problem, Orlando (Jermyn Street Theatre), Sophia (Arcola Theatre), The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Mini Summer Night's Dream (Watermill Theatre), The River Runner (Glimmer Theatre), Sonnet Sunday, Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe), and The Railway Children (York Theatre Royal). Her television credits include Pan Tau; and for film The Railway Children.
Michael Maloney plays Ernest Eccles. His theatre credits include Murder on the Orient Express (UK and China tour), Winner's Curse (Park Theatre), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Charing Cross Theatre), Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Alice's Adventures Underground, Once in a While the Odd Thing Happens (National Theatre), Wonderland (The Assembly Rooms Edinburgh), Hamlet (Theatre Royal Plymouth, UK tour), Mouth to Mouth (Royal Court Theatre, Noël Coward Theatre), King Lear, A Woman Killed with Kindness, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, Derek, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, Lear, The Roaring Girl , Macbeth (RSC), Sleuth, Hamlet, Peer Gynt (UK tours), The Day I Stood Still (National Theatre Studio), In Lambeth (Donmar Warehouse), All My Sons (Royal Exchange Theatre), Built on Sand (Royal Court Theatre), The London Cuckolds (Lyric Theatre), Two Planks and a Passion (Greenwich Theatre), The Perfectionist (Hampstead Theatre), Can You Hear Me at the Back? (Piccadilly Theatre), and Taking Steps (Lyric Theatre). His extensive screen credits include, for television, Marble Hall Murders, Moonflower Murders, The Marlowe Sessions, Dalgliesh, All Creatures Great and Small, Magpie Murders, Father Brown, The Trial of Christine Keeler, Silent Witness, The Crown, Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators, Midsomer Murders, Victoria, Paranoid, The Five, Mr Selfridge, River, The C Word, Utopia, New Worlds, Fleming, By Any Means, The White Queen, The Thick of It, Accused, Coronation Street, Death in Paradise, DCI Banks, Identity, Casualty, The Queen, Law & Order: UK, Margaret, Wired, Heartbeat, Bonekickers, Waking the Dead, Heroes and Villains, Impact Earth, Learners, Wire in the Blood, Futureshock: Comet, Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, The Bill, Robin Hood, Spooks, Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, New Tricks, Pinochet in Suburbia, Hotel Babylon, Marple, Lewis, Rosemary & Thyme, Monarch of the Glen, Empire, The Murder Room, Messiah: The Promise, Let's Write a Story, The Last Detective, Henry VIII, The Forsyte Saga, Lawrence of Arabia, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Me & Mrs Jones, Believe Nothing, The Jury, The Swap, In Deep, Magic Grandad, A Christmas Carol, Dalziel and Pascoe, Children of the New Forest, Macbeth, Painted Lady, Sex & Chocolate, The Writing Game, Trafford Tanzi, Jackanory, Signs and Wonders, Love on a Branch Line, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Rik Mayall Presents, Comedy Playhouse, Mr Wakefield's Crusade, He-Play, Screen Two, MuppeTelevision, Relatively Speaking, 4 Play, Screenplay, Theatre Night, Scoop, What If It's Raining, A Dangerous Kind of Love, Mountain Men, The Last Place on Earth, Sharma and Beyond, Minder, Tartuffe, or the Impostor, The Bell, Kinvig and Telford's Change; and for film, The Vicar's Wife, Blueberry Inn, Aubergenfeld, Gifted Pain, Ride the Snake, Lawrence: After Arabia, Belfast, Where Is Anne Frank, Three Pints and a Rabbi, A Brixton Tale, Luna, Born of War, Summer in February, The Iron Lady, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, The Young Victoria, I See You, Notes on a Scandal, Babel, Kisna: The Warrior Poet, Battle of the Brave, Bienvenue au gîte, American Reel, Sans plomb, Hysteria, Hamlet, Looking for Richard, Othello, In the Bleak Midwinter, Hamlet, Truly Madly Deeply, Henry V, La maschera, Ordeal by Innocence and Richard's Things.
Jordan Scowen plays Bob. His theatre credits include Oedipus (Wyndham's Theatre, Studio 54, New York City), and The History Boys (Wolverhampton Grand Theatre). His television credits include Belgravia: The Next Chapter, Masters of the Air, Home and Urban Myths; and for film, Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans.
