Following the huge success of last year’s festive hit The Wind in the Willows, Rose Theatre Kingston’s most successful Christmas production to date, the theatre today announces its 2017 Christmas show Alice in Winterland. The play, based on Lewis Carroll’s much loved Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, is adapted and directed by Ciaran McConville, following his acclaimed productions of The Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, with music and lyrics by Eamonn O’Dwyer, and featuring a professional cast alongside a group of Rose Youth Theatre actors.
Alice has always been brought up to believe in wonder but her life takes an unexpected turn when she is sent to live with her stern auntie… until she is visited by a White Rabbit and propelled on a quest to save Winterland.
Follow Alice to the magically curious world of Winterland, a world of ice and imagination, of mad hatters and cruel queens, strong-minded dodos and friendly knights. A world inhabited by the mysterious Bandersnatch and the terrible Jabberwock, a world that lies in the shuffle of a pack of cards or in the lines across a chess board, where the impossible becomes possible…
This dazzlingly festive new stage production is based on Lewis Carroll’s timeless books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Step through the Looking Glass with Alice this Christmas and join her for this glorious adventure.
Ciaran McConville said today:
“Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland books are genius. They’re funny, clever, exciting and completely bonkers. I’m looking forward to the challenge of writing a festive adventure from such a mad melée of brilliant characters. Carroll’s work will always resonate because he writes about a child trying to make sense of the world and herself. She doesn’t always get it right, and there’s often a battle between head and heart, but she always stands up against injustice and she has faith in her own imagination – something we all need to remember at Christmas, I think.”
The production will once again be supported by Wahid Samady and CNM Estates, who have sponsored the Rose Theatre Kingston Christmas show since 2014.
ENGLISH TOURING THEATRE ANNOUNCES FULL CASTING FOR THE WORLD PREMIÈRE OF
SANDI TOKSVIG’S
Silver Lining
English Touring Theatre’s Artistic Director Richard Twyman today announces full casting for the world première of Sandi Toksvig’s Silver Lining.
Theo Toksvig makes his professional stage debut, having graduated from Drama Centre last year, and completes the company, joining the previously announced Rachel Davies, Kezia Josephs, Maggie McCarthy, Joanna Munro, Sheila Reid and Amanda Walker. It opens on 8 February at Rose Theatre Kingston before touring to New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, Oxford Playhouse, Cambridge Arts Theatre, New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich, Theatre by the Lake, York Theatre Royal and the Lowry.
On one dark and stormy night in the upper day room of the Silver Retirement Home, five elderly ladies are trading stories of their remarkable lives. With the storm floods rising and no rescue team in sight, the ladies are faced with the sudden realisation that in order to survive they are going to have to do what they have done for their entire lives – do it themselves!
Silver Lining is the new comedy by Sandi Toksvig. It tells the tale of five extraordinary yet forgotten women, who come together one treacherous night to recreate The Great Escape – senior citizen style!
Director – Rebecca Gatward
Designer – Michael Taylor
Sound and Projection Designer – Mic Pool
Lighting Designer – Mark Doubleday
Associate Director – Spencer Noll
Sandi Toksvig is a writer, actor, presenter and political activist. Her previous writing for the stage includes the musical Big Night Out at the Little Sands Picture Palace and The Pocket Dream. Until last year she was the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz and in October 2016 took over from Stephen Fry as the host of BBC television quiz show QI. She is the joint founder of the Women’s Equality Party which was established in March 2015.
Sheila Reid plays Gloria. Her theatre credits include Pericles (Shakespeare’s Globe), Othello and The Three Sisters (The Old Vic), Romeo and Juliet, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore and Richard III (RSC), When I Was A Girl I Used To Scream And Shout and My Mother Said I Never Should (Royal Court Theatre), The Importance of Being Earnest (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Pornography (Tricycle Theatre), Into The Woods (Donmar Warehouse), Filomena (Almeida Theatre), Hedda Gabler (National Theatre) and at Edinburgh Festival, Love Among the Butterflies, Terrible with Raisons In It (both of which she wrote) and Maurice’s Jubilee (also UK tour). For television, she is perhaps best known for her role as Madge in ITV comedy Benidorm. Her other television credits include Call the Midwife, Doctor Who, Father Brown and Psychobitches.
Rebecca Gatward directs. Her theatre credits include The Night Watch (Manchester Royal Exchange), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, Chester), for West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Accrington Pals and Beryl(also Rose Theatre Kingston), The Trial Of Dennis The Menace(Southbank Centre), The Comedy Of Errors, The Merchant Of Venice (Shakespeare’s Globe), Pandas (Traverse Theatre), The Indian Boy (RSC Complete Works Festival), The Canterbury Tales, directed in partnership with Greg Doran and Jonathan Munby and Thyestes (RSC), Touched (Salisbury Playhouse) and Cancer Tales (New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich). She was Company Director on ThisIs Our Youth with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck at the Garrick Theatre. Her work for television includes EastEnders (winner Broadcast award and soap award nominations for best episode and scene), Casualty, Doctors and Sadie J.
English Touring Theatre is one of the UK’s most successful and exciting production companies, widely regarded as England’s national theatre of touring. The company works with leading artists to stage an eclectic mix of new and classic work for audiences throughout the UK and overseas; theatre that is thrilling, popular and, above all, entertaining. Upcoming tours include Sandi Toksvig’s Silver Lining which opens at Rose Theatre Kingston in February and the Olivier Award winning Shakespeare’s Globe production of Nell Gwynn, starring Laura Pitt-Pulford.
