Truck announces opening programme for Ferensway
March 10, 2009
Hull Truck has released details of its programme for the forthcoming opening season at its new Ferensway home, which opens on 23 April. A new play by creative director John Godber and a revised version of Alan Plater’s Confessions of a City Supporter, to celebrate Hull City’s progression to the top flight of English football, will be among the highlights at the purpose-built 440-seater.
The premiering play, entitled Funny Turns, is to run from April 25 until May 16. It is Godber’s 55th and, as is customary, he will direct its first production. The story of a Hull couple whose life unexpectedly veers towards “rock, roadies and rheumatics”, its cast will include several Truck stalwarts, with Robert Angell’s 12th Truck premiere being especially noteworthy.
While the production of Confessions of a City Supporter will essentially be a revival, the play has been updated to encompass City’s rise to the Premier League. First performed in its original form at the now defunct Spring Street Theatre in 2004 to widespread approval, the reworked version is to play at Ferensway from 21 May to 13 June, with Truck artistic director Gareth Tudor Price in charge.
Tudor Price will also direct a new work by local playwright Rupert Creed named Every Time it Rains (18 June to 4 July). Informed by a series of interviews with victims of the flooding that damaged Hull and east Yorkshire in 2007, its staging will maintain Truck’s longstanding policy of backing local writers and commissioning plays of particular local interest or relevance. Tudor Price commented that “the floods were obviously a hugely significant event in the history of the area, which we felt we should acknowledge. We will strive to portray with some accuracy what happened during, in the immediate aftermath and two years after the floods, but also hope to reflect the great community spirit and sense of humour that was in evidence, despite the devastation.”
Truck has also confirmed that a new Jane Thornton play entitled Say it With Flowers is to be performed between 9 July and 1 August. This will likewise embody the company’s emphasis on regional interest, albeit in a less serious fashion.
The announcement also reveals some details of the new 134-seat studio theatre’s opening programme. It will open with a five-night festival of well regarded young playwrights’ work (5 to 9 May). As well as performing an adaptation of Melvyn Bragg novel The Hired Man during the first four days of the event, Hull Truck Youth Theatre will also perform a production of Willy Russell’s Our Day Out in the main house between 19 and 22 August. Additionally, the studio will host the return of Godber’s Beef following its national tour (11 to 23 May) and the premiere of Ladies’ Day and Ladies Down Under author Amanda Whittington’s new piece Amateur Girl (11 – 27 June).
Summarising the approach that the company adopted in assembling the programme, Godber drew attention to its continuity with Truck’s traditions and long-term policies. “We felt very strongly that our programming should remain much the same as at Spring Street,” he remarked. “There has been a sense from the audience that they want the same, but a different environment. I think essentially what Hull Truck’s core driver is should remain constant – plays that have a resonance and a meaning to this part of the world.”
-Simon Walker
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