Hampstead Theatre Announces Lineup For Daring Pairings 3 Writing Festival

Hampstead Theatre's third new writing festival, Daring Pairings 3, will be the climax of its 50th Anniversary celebrations, announced on Tuesday 30 June. The first major revival of Philip Ridley's malevolent comedy, The Fastest Clock in the Universe opens the season which also includes a debut play from 20 year old Atiha Sen Gupta and a spooky seasonal offering from Michael Punter.

Anthony Clark, Artistic Director:
"Hampstead's Anniversary Year has been a wonderful excuse to rummage through our archives and rediscover some of our hidden gems. We wish we could bring more of the vast back-catalogue back into the public eye, but the plays we have chosen to highlight represent the journey this remarkable theatre company has made over half a century. This will be my last season as Hampstead Theatre's Artistic Director and I am delighted to present the autumn programme, which includes our third new writing festival and introduces a young writer who has been learning her craft with us since her early teens; something which has only been possible since our move into the new building."

17 September - 17 October
A Hampstead Theatre and Curve Theatre, Leicester production in association with The Fish Partnership
THE FASTEST CLOCK IN THE UNIVERSE
By Philip Ridley
Director Edward Dick
Designer Mark Thompson
The final major revival in Hampstead's Golden Anniversary Year is Philip Ridley's edgy masterpiece The Fastest Clock in the Universe. First performed at Hampstead in 1992, featuring a young Jude Law, Ridley's malevolent comedy won him the Meyer Whitworth Prize, The Critic's Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising New Playwright and the Time Out Award. Ridley has been commissioned and produced at Hampstead more than any other playwright and this, his second play, was one of Hampstead's biggest hits in the 1990s.
Further hits form the 1990s are celebrated in two rehearsed readings: Shelagh Stephenson's An Experiment with an Air Pump which premiered in 1998, and Simon Block's Chimps which was first performed in 1997.

23 October - 7 November
A Hampstead Theatre production
WHAT FATIMA DID...
by Atiha Sen Gupta
What Fatima Did... is a debut play from Atiha Sen Gupta, a long-term member of Hampstead Theatre's young company, Heat & Light. The story is set in and around a secondary school after the summer holidays and explores, with fresh wit and originality, the consequences of one girl's decision to wear the Hijab.
Atiha joined Heat & Light in 2003, age 13, and her burgeoning reputation as a writer has earned her a place on the writing team for Channel 4's hugely successful series, Skins. She was commissioned to write for Hampstead Theatre's main stage in 2006, becoming one of the big success stories to emerge from the company's move into its new venue in Swiss Cottage. The Creative Learning department has grown exponentially and is now fully integrated into the main programme, allowing very real opportunities for developing new writing and new writers in-house. This is a substantial part of the legacy Anthony Clark will leave, following his decision to step down as Artistic Director.
Hampstead Theatre's hits from the 2000s include Alistair Beaton's brilliant satire on New Labour, Feelgood (2001), and Dennis Kelly's brutal and timely drama Osama the Hero (2005). Both will be revived as rehearsed readings in the Hampstead studio, The Michael Frayn Space.

26 October - 7 November
DARING PAIRINGS 3
Alongside Atiha Sen Gupta's new comedy, Hampstead Theatre presents Daring Pairings 3: its third festival of new writing. Five unexpected collaborations have been assembled and invited to experiment with different ways to create a piece of new writing: Hampstead's five writers on attachment (Satinder Kaur Chohan, Samantha Ellis, Juliet Gilkes Romero, Joel Horwood and Kieran Lynn) will work on a play together for the main stage; heat&light team up with an established writer to produce a play of their own; Central School of Speech and Drama collaborate with Hampstead Theatre to showcase a new piece of music theatre, Noctropia, by Judy Upton with music by Oliver Searle, commissioned in 2003; The Factory will apply their creative process to new play writing and Nabokov theatre will broker some cross art form collaborations. Performances will take place in the Michael Frayn Space, the main auditorium, and various mystery locations around the building. Anything could happen...

10 November - 28 November
Sweet Spot Productions present
I FOUND MY HORN
by Jonathan Guy Lewis and Jasper Rees
From the book by Jasper Rees
Directed by Harry Burton
Hampstead Theatre welcomes the brilliantly life-affirming adaptation of Jasper Rees' I Found My Horn. The one-man-show, adapted and performed by Jonathan Guy Lewis (Alphabetical Order, Hampstead 2009) and directed by Harry Burton, enjoyed critical success on its short tour in 2008 and returns to London for a longer run from 12 to 28 November. At forty, a man wakes up to a broken marriage, a beckoning bedsit and the realisation that his life does not add up to much. Clambering into the attic he finds the French horn he never mastered in his youth and sets himself an impossible task - to play a Mozart horn concerto in front of a paying audience.
Anyone with a desire to rediscover their long-forgotten musical aspirations can also take part in a light-hearted workshop with Jonathan Guy Lewis on Thursday 19 and Saturday 28 November.

3 December - 16 January
A Hampstead Theatre production
DARKER SHORES
by Michael Punter
Director Anthony Clark
Designer Paul Farnsworth
Though Hampstead Theatre's building is a mere seven years old, in December it will become haunted by Michael Punter's Darker Shores. Punter's classic ghost story is the seasonal family show, featuring Julian Rhind-Tutt (Green Wing) and Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen). Anthony Clark directs.
Michael Punter has written extensively for theatre and radio. His play The Wolves, produced by Paines Plough, was shortlisted for the George Devine and Margaret Ramsay awards. Recent works include Upstart Crows, a play about Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn, produced at the Edinburgh Festival.
10 December - 2 January
Watershed Productions presents the BBC Worldwide and Polka Theatre production of
CHARLIE AND LOLA'S BEST BESTEST PLAY
Based on the characters by Lauren Child
Everyone's favourite brother and sister, Charlie and Lola, will let their vivid imaginations loose in their absolutely completely first ever stage show. The stars of the hit BBC TV series and books by Lauren Child are brought to life by a magical mix of puppets and music, designed to captivate every child aged 3 up.
2-D and 3-D worlds mingle in this new play, adapted from some of the freshest and funniest episodes....Will Lola ever tidy her messy room? Will Charlie get Lola to sleep, even though she is not sleepy and will not go to bed?

http://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/

To post a comment, you must register and login.