New season unveiled at Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse

Aug 26 2010 Flintshire Chronicle

LIVERPOOL’S Everyman and Playhouse Theatres have revealed a new season bursting with passion, classics, new writing and a Christmas world première.

Everyman and Playhouse artistic director, Gemma Bodinetz and executive director Deborah Aydon, have announced the final part of their 2010 season, to complete a year that has produced four world premières, two West End transfers and two UK touring productions.

The autumn sees Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall returning to her birth city to play Cleopatra; a new adventure entitled Everyman Unbound; and a world première at the Playhouse for Christmas, not to mention the last rock and roll panto to be staged at the Everyman, before it closes for redevelopment.

For October at the Playhouse renowned actress and director Janet Suzman directs a remarkable cast in Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare’s epic tragedy of passion and power.

As Cleopatra, Kim Cattrall takes on one of the greatest female roles in the Shakespearean canon, opposite Jeffery Kissoon as the once great warrior, Antony.Š

The cast also includes Ian Hogg, Martin Hutson, Oliver Hoare, Gracy Goldman, Aicha Kossoko, Simon Manyonda, Offue Okegbe, Robert Orme and Mark Sutherland.

The theatres try something different this autumn with Everyman Unbound, an exciting new adventure over six weeks.Š

One extraordinary ensemble of actors will perform, in rep, a production of John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore and an Anthology of seven new stories by local writers.

The John Ford play, first published in 1633, is still one of the most shocking and powerful theatre stories of all time.

This explosive new production, directed by Chris Meads, will inspire an Anthology of seven new stories by some of the Everyman’s most innovative playwrights.Š

Working with one of the UK’s pioneering theatre companies, Slung Low, Anthology will take theatre beyond the walls of the Everyman and on to the city streets as audiences become part of an unknown journey of discovery.

For the next world première at the Playhouse, Peepolykus, the team behind West End hit The Hound of the Baskervilles, working with Everyman and Playhouse Artistic Director Gemma Bodinetz, have created a new Christmas comedy.

No Wise Men, written by Steven Canny and John Nicholson, with Javier Marzan, and directed by Gemma Bodinetz, is an hilarious, magical and absurd tale about a reckless man who risks everything one Christmas Eve.

Peepolykus have won fans in Liverpool and across the world with their riotous collision of verbal surprises and visual ingenuity which, in this Everyman and Playhouse co-production, sees reality and the ridiculous collide in what is sure to be an enchanting and farcical festive adventure.

The theatres continue to bring some of the best quality theatre companies and performers from around the country to Liverpool.

The Playhouse welcomes back Northern Broadsides to make it a hat-trick of visits this year from one of Liverpool audiences’ favourite touring theatre companies.

Following Medea and The Canterbury Tales, in September they bring their new production of Harold Brighouse’s spirited comedy about two football families, The Game, directed by Barrie Rutter.

In November at the Everyman Jeff Merrifield’s Hit Me! The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury, a warts-and-all portrait with music of the Blockheads’ lead singer, comes to Liverpool direct from its second West End season.

To book tickets for any of these shows, ring the box office on 0151 709 4776 or visit www.everymanplayhouse.com.