Tour Tricks for Hare's Permanent Way???

Could the play that bring sDavid Hare back to the National Theatre after the "exile" years of Trevor Nunn (See The Goss, 31 Dec 2002) be the dramatic equivalent of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express? The latter made music out of the unlikely subject of railway trains and the former aims to make political satire out of the same. Billed as an "extraordinary parable of British mismanagement", The Permanent Way is based on first-hand accounts with those most closely involved in the privatisation that, since 1991, has brought about the UK's modern transport chaos. The play - co-produced by the National and Out of Joint, whose artistic director Max Stafford-Clark will direct (See News, 24 Jun 2003) - will tour from November 2003 before settling in on the South Bank, where Hare's work, once a staple, has not been seen since 1997's Amy's View, helmed by then artistic director Richard Eyre. Though casting, dates and venues haven't yet been announced, a few other interesting touring titbits. First, the schedule is expected to commence in York, by no coincidence, home of the National Railway Museum. Second, the designs by William Dudley will be in the impressively high-tech, 3-D projection mould with which he broke award-winning ground last year in The Coast of Utopia and employed again in the Royal Court's Hitchcock Blonde, now transferred to the West End. While those two productions have been London-locked, Dudley hopes that The Permanent Way's UK-wide progress will prove his designs to be an easily transportable success.

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