Theatre round-up
Mission Theatre
An Evening with The Hot Potato Syncopators
More than just a band, The Hot Potato Syncopators defy definition by bringing music, circus and theatre together in a hilarious, highenergy, Vaudeville-style show loaded with visual gags, balancing, juggling, clowning, silly dances, and jazzy tunes.
Three eccentric English gentlemen perform comedy versions of classic songs on a ukulele, musical saw, tea-chest bass, and a variety of peculiar instruments, with a spectacular finale you’ll never forget.
Real old-fashioned variety entertainment suitable for all.
Tickets: £12 (£10 concs). Friday 5th to Saturday 6th July at 7.30pm. Available from Bath Box Office 01225 463362. www.bathboxoffice.org.uk.
The Comedy of Operas
Operatic soprano Louise Geller debuts her innovative show with pianist Alex Norton.
Playful, accessible and engaging, Louise performs a selection of comedy arias from operas old and new, with the help of props, streamers and some of opera’s wildest characters! Prepare yourself for an evening of outrageous parties, tales of mistaken identities and temperamental princesses.
This entertaining show from Opera Doll Productions is excellent for opera newcomers and seasoned opera buffs alike. If you think you know opera think again!
Monday 15th to Tuesday 16th July at 7.30pm. Tickets: £11 (£9 concs). Available from Bath Box Office 01225 463362. www.bathboxoffice.org.uk
The Fever
Behind Closed Doors Theatre and Sounds Like Thunder Theatre presents The Fever by Wallace Shawn.
This is the account of a woman’s attempt to understand her position of privilege and the moral dilemmas she encounters when she becomes aware that the poverty of others has afforded her a privileged past.
She is fearless in her examination of the social system which powers relationships that allow her to live the life that she does. This extraordinary play is a brilliant examination of what it means to be human in our modern world.
Thursday 18th to Friday 19th July at 7.30pm. Tickets: £12 (£10 concs). Available from https://www.ticketsignite.com/event/1196/the-fever.
Tangletree
Back by popular demand! Following JDJB and TLBB Productions’ visit to snowy Bath earlier this year, we are delighted to welcome this talented company with its compelling play by Jayne Connell and Jasmine Darke back to The Mission Theatre.
“Am I dead”? Hazel asks, as her mother Ivy contemplates the past and an unknown future.
A catastrophic event forces the two women to face reality. But what is familiar? Where is the thread? Is it in the wool, the yarn?
Tangletree will resonate with anyone who has loved and triumphed, raged or even despaired at life’s challenges. This play is inspired by real life experiences.
Saturday 20th July at 2pm & 7.30pm. Tickets: £12.50 (£10.50). Tickets available online at www.missiontheatre.co.uk/tickets. Next Stage Box Office - 01225 428600 or email nextstagebath@aol.com.
Theatre Royal
Blithe Spirit
You have until Saturday 6th July to enjoy one of the UK’S most popular comic actresses, Jennifer Saunders (French and Saunders, Absolutely Fabulous), starring as one of Noel Coward’s best-loved characters, the eccentric clairvoyant, Madame Arcati in a brand new production of Blithe Spirit at Bath’s Theatre Royal.
Coward’s own favourite play sees novelist Charles Condomine and his second wife, Ruth, literally haunted by a past relationship when Madame Arcati inadvertently conjures up the ghost of Charles’s neurotic first wife, Elvira, at a seance.
When the ghost of Elvira appears - visible only to Charles - and determined to sabotage his current marriage, life and the afterlife get complicated.
Blithe Spirit also features Cranford’s Lisa Dillon as Ruth, Geoffrey Streatfeild, from Spooks and The Thick of It, as Charles, Lucy Robinson from Cold Feet as Mrs Bradman and Emma Naomi, who recently starred in Pinter Five in the West End, as Elvira. The cast is completed by Simon Coates as Dr Bradman and Rose Wardlaw as high speed maid Edith.
Directed by Richard Eyre, formerly director of the National Theatre, Blithe Spirit also features a stunning set and costumes by West End and Broadway designer Anthony Ward.
Michael Palin’s Erebus, Python and Other Stories
Monty Python star and much-loved globetrotter Michael Palin visits the Theatre Royal with his new oneman stage show on Sunday 7th July.
In the first half Michael, right, will bring to life the thrilling story of HMS Erebus, the subject of his latest best-selling book, Erebus: The Story of A Ship.
During the second half, he will tell his own life story, including how his three favourite subjects at school geography, history and comedy shaped his life, from Monty Python to Ripping Yarns and the many television travel series that have taken him around the world, from the North Pole to North Korea.
Advance tickets for this date have sold out, but a limited number of standing tickets will go on sale on 7th July - they can be purchased from 6pm over the counter at the Theatre Royal Box Office, cash sales only.
Russell Howard and Friends Award-winning comedian Russell Howard (Russell Howard’s Good News, The Russell Howard Hour, Mock the Week) hosts a one-off comedy show Russell Howard and Friends - at the Theatre Royal on Saturday 13th July to raise funds for the Bath Rugby Foundation.
All tickets are sold out for the date at the Theatre Royal including standing places – returns only.
Uncle Vanya
The Summer Season continues in the Main House as star of stage and screen Rupert Everett returns to Bath accompanied by a stellar cast in one of Chekhov’s great theatrical masterpieces, Uncle Vanya, which he will also direct.
This new production will run at the Theatre Royal from Thursday 18th July to Saturday 3rd August.
It is late summer, at the close of the nineteenth century. In the heart of the Russian countryside, Vanya and his niece Sonya have worked for years to manage the ramshackle estate on behalf of his brother-inlaw, a retired professor.
When the professor arrives with his stunningly beautiful young wife and announces his plan to sell the estate, all their lives are thrown into turmoil. With sparkling humour and unflinching humanity, Chekhov spins a playful story of unrequited love, loss and misplaced dreams. This new version of Uncle Vanya has been especially commissioned by Theatre Royal Bath from leading playwright and screenwriter, David Hare, whose award-winning plays include Racing Demon, Plenty, Skylight and The Judas Kiss.
Rupert Everett’s many leading film roles have included the multi award-winning My Best Friend’s Wedding, Dance With A Stranger, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband and the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek 2 and Shrek The Third.
Last year he starred as Oscar Wilde in the film The Happy Prince, which he also wrote and directed.
Katherine Parkinson makes a welcome return to Bath to play Sonya following her recent performance in the Olivier Award-winning Best New Comedy, Home, I’m Darling, which toured to the Theatre Royal this April direct from the National Theatre and the West End. Her much loved television roles include Jen in The IT Crowd and Pauline in Doc Martin.
Olivier Award nominated Ann Mitchell, who appears as Marina, is well known on television for playing Cora in Eastenders, Elise Dyer in Call the Midwife, and currently for her role as Gwen in Channel 4’s Year of the Rabbit.
The cast also features Clémence Poésy as Yelena. Best known as Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter films, her screen credits also include 127 Hours, In Bruges, War and Peace, Gossip Girl and Birdsong. John Light, who plays Astrov, was Olivier Award nominated for his role in Taken at Midnight in the West End and recently starred in Mary Stuart in the West End, which toured to Bath in 2018.
John Standing, who appears as Waffles, has enjoyed a career spanning seven decades in theatre, television and film.
Vanya’s mother is played by Marty
Cruickshank whose television credits include Call The Midwife, Catastrophe, Line of Duty and Lewis. Michael Byrne, who plays the Professor, recently appeared in Mary Stuart in the West End.
Tickets for all productions at the Theatre Royal can be purchased from the Box Office on 01225 448844 and online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk.
The Ustinov
Vienna 1934 – Munich 1938: A Family Album
Theatrical legend Vanessa Redgrave appears at the Ustinov Studio next month, directing and narrating her own play, based on her family’s notebooks, journals and memoirs from across Europe on the eve of the Second World War.
In the late 1930s, the illustrious actor Michael Redgrave became close friends with the celebrated poet Stephen Spender.
Through their correspondence, diaries, and Stephen’s poems, love affairs are remembered, and the hopes and fears of a generation are expressed as they confront the rise of Fascism in Europe.
As Stephen’s love and respect for a young American woman studying in Vienna grows deeper, he and his secretary try to assist her in obtaining false visas and passports for socialist Jews and their families to escape from Fascist Austria.
Written and directed by Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Redgrave’s daughter, the play highlights the affectionate and intimate thoughts of individuals during these years of political and social upheaval. She is joined on stage by Robert Boulter, Lucy Doyle and Paul Hilton.
One of the greatest actors of her generation, Vanessa Redgrave (inset) has won a plethora of awards, including an Olivier for The Aspern Papers and a Tony Award for Long Day’s Journey into Night.
She also received Tony nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy. She is a six-time Oscar nominee, winning for Julia. Her narration of Call The Midwife has brought her voice to millions. . Thursday 11 July – Saturday 3 August. Tickets are on sale now from the Box Office on 01225 448844 or online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk/ustinov.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Janie Dee, Mark Hadfield and Rebecca Lacey lead the cast in the UK premiere of Christopher Durang’s irresistible comedy, one of the most lauded and best loved Broadway plays of recent years.
Directed by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike blends Chekhov’s famous ennui with the modern-day concerns of celebrity, social networking and the troubling onset of middle-age, into a laugh out loud comedy.
Vanya and his sister Sonia live a quiet life in the Pennsylvania farmhouse where they grew up and from where their sister Masha escaped many years ago to become a movie star.
When Masha returns unannounced with her twenty-something boy toy, Spike, so begins a rollicking weekend of rivalry, regret and all too true premonitions. Janie Dee is one of the UK’S most versatile actors, the winner of Olivier Awards for Carousel, Comic Potential and Hello, Dolly!
Her recent credits include the hit Broadway play Hand to God in the West End, and the highly-acclaimed Follies at the National Theatre.
Alongside an extensive stage and screen career, Mark Hadfield has been a popular member of the Summer Season companies in Bath, starring in The Libertine alongside Dominic Cooper, Mrs Henderson Presents, The Tempest and Sir Peter Hall’s productions of Man and Superman and Don Juan. Rebecca Lacey recently starred in the RSC’S acclaimed production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
The cast is completed with Michelle Asante (Our Lady of Kibeho, Royal & Derngate Theatre; Lucky Man, Sky One; Father Brown and Our Girl, BBC); Aysha Kala (Indian Summers, Channel 4) and Lewis Reeves (My Night With Reg at the Donmar).
Christopher Durang’s play was the winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is directed by Walter Bobbie, the Tony Award-winning director of Chicago.
Thursday 6 June – Saturday 6 July. Tickets are on sale now from the Box Office on 01225 448844 or online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk/ustinov.
The egg
Adult graduates of the Theatre Royal Bath’s Theatre School, present a double-bill of powerful plays by local writers: Marek Horn’s The Sloe Pickers and Marietta Kirkbride’s The Arrivals; and a new comedy from Samuel Bailey, The Waiting Room.
The Sloe Pickers
The sloes at Worth Matravers are the best in the world and every year the teachers from the local primary school meet – on the first weekend after the first frost – to pick them, prick them and make their delicious sloe gin. Then they drink last year’s batch.
The ritual never changes and neither does the recipe. It’s a chance to drink deep and remember, to get drunk and forget. The future is the same as the past. Painful memories and strange premonitions collide in The Sloe Pickers, Marek Horn’s lyrical exploration of time and place.
The Arrivals
A canal towpath. Summer. It is hot – scorchingly, deliriously, crack-open-the-tinnies-at-2pm kind of hot. For a small boat-dwelling community, the days slide by like fat swans on the water.
But then the caravan arrives. And then the woman. And then a gaggle of actual swans.
Then amongst all of this, things begin to go missing…
The Arrivals is Marietta Kirkbride’s playful exploration of what happens when one fraction of society rubs up against another; who we trust and who we don’t, and asks why people become afraid of those that seem vulnerable.
The Waiting Room
Director Bryn Holding is an associate director of Hammer puzzle Theatre Company.
His recent directing credits include Twelfth Night, A Comedy of Errors and a UK tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Sell A Door Theatre. He previously worked with the TRB Adult Creative Learning team on The Dogs of War which was highly-acclaimed in 2016.
Later in July, Fourth Floor Theatre, the latest company to emerge from the adult Theatre School programme, presents The Waiting Room, a comic and heartfelt exploration of friendships, connection and the little matter of what comes next…
As summertime tourists flock, the fresh-faced, polo shirt-sporting employees of Bath’s beleaguered Adventure Tours have it all in front of them. Which might be the problem. But how can you even begin to figure your life out when you have Romans, Royals and Ross from Friends to contend with?
Throw in a heady Jane Austen romance, a bottle of tequila and the threat of redundancy and everything’s getting very complicated…
The Theatre Royal Bath’s Theatre School is open to anyone aged 5 to 105 (and older!) and offers an inclusive programme of workshops that cover all disciplines of theatre-making, All performers in this doublebill auditioned for the adult company in September last year.
This production is the culmination of their weekly workshops with professional writers, directors and designers. Auditions for the 2019/20 adult programme take place this summer. For more details contact engage@theatreroyal.org.uk
The Sloe Pickers and The Arrivals are at the egg theatre from Thursday 4 – Saturday 6 July. The Waiting Room is at the egg theatre from Thursday 25 – Saturday 27 July. Tickets are on sale from the egg reception on 01225 823409, the Theatre Royal Box Office on 01225 448844 and online at www. theatreroyal.org.uk.