Theatre News

New five-hour Ayckbourn piece in Edinburgh International Festival

The line up for this year’s International Festival has been announced

Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
© Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage

A new play by Alan Ayckbourn will serve as the centre piece of this year's Edinburgh International Festival.

The Divide is a new work by the playwright which runs at over five hours and will be performed in two parts at the King's Theatre. The piece is a satirical love story set in England 100 years in the future in the aftermath of a devastating plague. It will be directed by The Old Vic’s associate director Annabel Bolton.

Scottish playwright Zinnie Harris' reimagining of Aeschylus’s Oresteia, as well as the world premiere of her work Meet Me at Dawn, based on the Orpheus myth, will open alongside Rhinoceros, a new adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s piece on the rise of extremism. They will be presented by Citizens Theatre, Royal Lyceum Theatre and the Traverse Theatre Company.

Vox Motus will present Flight, an adaptation of Caroline Brothers' novel Hinterland. The piece follows two brothers on a journey across Europe from their home in Afghanistan in search of safety.

2017 will see two new venues hosting more theatre at EIF. The Churchill Theatre will host Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, performed by Barry McGovern and directed by Michael Colgan. The Studio at the Festival Theatre houses will see Forced Entertainment's Real Magic, and a residency from Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed.

For the second year, The Hub will host a nightly house show; Australian chanteuse Meow Meow will return with Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid, a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale.

Opera includes the Teatro Regio company of Turin which brings Verdi’s Macbeth and John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir, which semi-stages all three Monteverdi operas: L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and I’incoronazione di Poppea. There will also be concert performances form the likes of Sir Bryn Terfel, Christine Goerke, Stuart Skelton, Erin Wall and Karen Cargill. Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek will also be staged by Scottish Opera.

Pop performers making an appearance as part of the festival include Jarvis Cocker, Chilly Gonzales, PJ Harvey and The Magnetic Fields.

There will be 48 classical concerts and recitals in the Usher, Queen's and St Cecilia's halls, including performances from Filarmonica della Scala, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

In dance, east London company Boy Blue Entertainment will bring their production Blak Whyte Gray. Nederlands Dans Theater return after 11 years, and there will be works from renowned choreographers Paul Lightfoot, Sol León and Gabriela Carrizo.

Edinburgh International Festival runs from 4 to 28 August.