Theatre News

Key Openings in the South-East This Fortnight

OPENING 5 October (with previews on 2 and 3 October). Ladies’ Day by Amanda Whittington at the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch]. This is only the second production of the comedy originally commissioned by John Godber and the Hull Truck Theatre Company in 2005. Cut to the chase… is the Queen’s own permanent ensemble of actors who are also musicians and this staging is directed by Matt Devitt and designed by Claire Lyth. The run continues until 17 October.

OPENING 7 October. That Old Feeling is a new comedy with music by Richard Harris., who also wrote Stepping Out (now on its 25th anniversary tour) and Outside Edge. It’s being staged for the Mill at Sonning dinner theatre by Alvin Rakoff} and has a score by [Denis King. The story concerns a widower and a divorcée who meet during ballroom dancing sessions ¬ but will love step in or trip them up? It runs until 21 November.
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OPENING 8 October. Egusi Soup . by Janice Okoh at thEastern Angles’ Sir John Mills Theatre in Ipswich until 9 October and then on tour in the East Anglian region until 17 October. This play by a young British-Nigerian writer is staged as part of Black History Month in a rehearsed reading and was part of the Hotbed Festival organized by Menagerie in July. Okoh has also written for the BBC’s Radio Four; the story is about two sisters from London going to Nigeria for a family funeral.

OPENING 8 October is a revival of Willy Russell’s Educating Rita>. This new production is by Jamie Glover, designed by Andrew D Edwards and lit by Mike Robertson.It can be seen at the Watermill in Newbury until 14 November. The two-hander about a not-too-sober lecturer and the hairdresser who wants help to educate herself out of a dull life has been staged (and filmed) many time since its première at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in 1980 and still strikes the right chords for its audiences.