Photo Flash: First Look at Untitled Projects / Unicorn Theatre's THE END OF EDDY

Stewart Laing directs Alex Austin and Kwaku Mills in The End of Eddy, Pamela Carter's powerful new work, based on Édouard Louis' best-selling book, in this co-production between Untitled Projects and the Unicorn Theatre.

The End of Eddy Will open as part of the Edinburgh International Festival prior to a rural Scottish tour to Inverness, Ullapool, Aberdeen, Moniaive, Stirling and Dumfries. It will then open at London's Unicorn Theatre and finish with a run at the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Born into brutal poverty, in the cultural wilderness of post-industrial rural France, a boy grows up amongst hard men and women living hard and violent lives. Bullied relentlessly for being gay, this is the story of Eddy's struggle to understand who he is, who he might become, and of his fight to escape.

Written when he was just 21 and combining vivid and urgent storytelling with frank reflections on sexuality, poverty and prejudice, Édouard Louis' acclaimed novel was first published in 2014 and is both unflinchingly honest and darkly entertaining. This new and boldly theatrical stage adaptation is a joint Unicorn Theatre and Untitled Projects commission and reunites visionary director Stewart Laing and his long-term collaborator, writer Pamela Carter, who have worked together since 2005.

Stewart Laing is a Scottish theatre director. He is Associate Director with National Theatre of Scotland and is Artistic Director of his own company, Untitled Projects, which he formed in 1998. Directing credits with Untitled Projects include J.G. Ballard Project, blind_sight, Slope, An Argument About Sex, The Salon Project, Paul Bright's Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Slope Redux. Other credits include The Maids for Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Ten Plagues for Traverse Theatre, Titus Andronicus for Dundee Rep, The Sewing Group for Royal Court, and most recently, Creditors for Lyceum in Edinburgh. Stewart recently directed David Sawer's new opera The Skating Rink for Garsington Opera. Stewart originally trained as a theatre designer at Central School of Art and Design in London and has worked extensively as a theatre designer throughout the UK and internationally. He has designed for the West End and Broadway, winning a Tony Award in 1997 for his work on the musical Titanic. Recent design credits include work for The Old Vic in London, The Park Avenue Armory in New York and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden.

Pamela Carter is a playwright and dramaturg. Her plays include Lines (The Yard Theatre, London); Fast Ganz Nah/Almost Near (Theater Dresden, Germany); Skåne (Hamptead Theatre; winner of the New Writing Commission at the Berliner Festspiele Stückemarkt in 2012); What We Know (Traverse Theatre); Wildlife (Magnetic North Theatre Co); The Last of Us (Play, Pie & a Pint). Her plays for Untitled Projects include Slope (2006 and 2014); Paul Bright's Confessions of a Justified Sinner, 2013; and An Argument About Sex (After Marivaux) in 2009. As dramaturg and writer with Vanishing Point Theatre, she has made the award-winning Interiors (touring internationally since 2009), Saturday Night, and Tomorrow.

Pamela also works in opera, film, dance and visual arts. Since 2014, she has been a visiting lecturer on the Masters in Interior Design at Glasgow School of Art.

Alex Austin's credits include, for the Unicorn Henry V, The Nutcracker, How to Think the Unthinkable, The Man with the Incredibly Smelly Foot. Other credits include most recently A New And Better You (The Yard), Gundog, Grimly Handsome, Primetime 2017, Yen, Pigeons (Royal Court), Thebes Land (Arcola); Fury (Soho); Barbarians (Young Vic) and The Skriker (Royal Exchange, Manchester). Television includes The Interceptor, Sherlock, New Tricks, Misfits and Holby City. Film includes A Moving Image, The Hooligan Factory and The World's End.

Kwaku Mills has recently graduated from the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts. Credits whilst training include; Raleigh in Journey's End, Ward in Women Beware Women, Benjamin in Easter and Colin Powell in Stuff Happens. He will be making his professional debut in The End of Eddy.

Age guide: 16+ (contains explicit sexual references and frequent use of strong language) Duration: Approx 1 hr 30 mins

Photo Credit: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan