Tom’s Midnight Garden returns to Library Theatre
November 28, 2007
The Library Theatre in Manchester enjoys a first-class reputation for the quality of its annual Christmas production, and this year will be no exception, because returning to the Library - with an all-new cast - is the award-winning Tom’s Midnight Garden, which played to packed houses and enjoyed excellent reviews in 2002.
Adapted by David Wood from the best-selling children’s book by Philippa Pearce, Tom’s Midnight Garden tells the story of 12-year-old Tom, who spends the summer at his aunt Gwen and uncle Alan’s house, to allow his brother to recover at home from measles. Bored, Tom ventures downstairs and discovers a previously hidden door behind which lies a secret Victorian world of magic, mystery, and adventure.
Heading an eight-strong cast as Tom is Arthur Wilson, alongside Blackpool-born Claire Redcliffe, who was nominated for a Best Actress Award in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards in 2004 for her role in Kindertransport at the Bolton Octagon Theatre. Claire plays Hatty, the beautiful young girl he discovers in the Victorian garden.
The rest of the cast is made up of veteran actress Helen Ryan, a BAFTA nominee for her role in the 1975 ITV mini-series Edward the Seventh. She also played Princess Alexandra in the film version of David Lynch’s acclaimed The Elephant Man in 1980; Christopher Chilton, who plays PC Michael Bates in Emmerdale and is the nephew of respected actor John Normington, a Library Theatre regular between 1959-1962 and who died earlier this year; Matthew Dunphy, who has worked extensively in Ireland; Timothy Allsop; Ben Ingles; and Carolyn Tomkinson.
Ideal family fayre, Tom’s Midnight Garden, which won the prestigious Theatre Managers’ Association Award for Best Show for Children and Young People in 2003, will be directed by the Library Theatre Associate Director Roger Haines, and Liam Steel, one of Britain’s leading physical theatre practitioners, who has worked with companies such as Frantic Assembly, and DV8. Liam most recently directed Haydn’s opera Country Matters for English Touring Opera, and last worked at the Library Theatre in 2005, when he co-directed that year’s Christmas production, Oliver Twist, also with Roger Haines.
Complete with imaginative video projections, Tom’s Midnight Garden looks set to beguil audiences all over again.
This classic, a Guardian newspaper - pick of the season- opens 1 December, 2007 until 12 January, 2008.
Fro tickets, go the Library Theatre website.
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