The top 10 theatre acts we are looking foward to most at Latitude Festival this year
Acts for the Theatre Arena at this year's Latitude Festival, which runs from 17 – 20 July, were announced last night at a press launch held at Sadler's Wells.
Here's our top 10 theatre highlights:
1. Attempts on a Revolution – RSC
© Georgina Ower
The RSC return to the festival with a new commission from writer Alice Birch. Little is known about the production at this stage, but with Birch winning the Arts Foundation Award 2014 for Playwriting, it's one to look out for.
2. Fleabag – DryWrite
Phoebe Waller-Bridge brings the production that won her the Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and 'Offies' for Best Female Performance and Most Promising New Playwright, to Latitude this year.
In his four star review for WhatsOnStage, Theo Bosanquet describes Fleabag as "an often very funny but deeply disturbing tale of a sex-addicted young woman struggling to control the natural urges which mask deeper psychological traumas."
3. Britannia Waves the Rules – Royal Exchange Manchester
The Royal Exchange present a new production of Gareth Farr's 2011 Bruntwood Prize winning Britannia Waves the Rules.
The production, which tells the story of a young soldier who is discharged from the army with post-traumatic stress disorder, will run in rep with The Last Days of Troy at the Manchester venue in May before moving on to the Suffolk based festival.
4. Void Story – Forced Entertainment
Sheffield-based artists Forced Entertainment blur the boundaries between radio play, graphic novel and live performance with a revival of Void Story that takes spectators on a journey through the ruins of contemporary culture. Described by WhatsOnStage as a "lushly macabre piece that makes a farce of storytelling."
5. Shame – Battersea Arts Centre
Shame by practitioner John Berkavitch, will explore the feeling of humiliation in a boundary-crossing work of spoken word, hip-hop, illustration, animation and music where he will be joined by some of the UK's leading break-dancers.
6. Mark Thomas
Award-winning comedian and playwright Mark Thomas brings his work in progress to the festival. A personal tale that sees Thomas explore what it means to find yourself spied on by a corporation under the sanction of the state.
Highlights from outside the Theatre Arena
7. The Notebook – Forced Entertainment
Forced Entertainment's second installment for the festival takes place in the new theatrical studio space "The Little House" in the Faraway Forest. The Notebook, based on the 1986 novel by Ágota Kristóf, tells the story of twin brothers evacuated to the Hungarian countryside during World War II.
8. Pandora's Playground
According to festival organisers "the spirit of experiment and carnival will be embodied at the festival in Pandora's Playground". This includes a joint task force between The Lyric Hammersmith, Greenwich & Docklands International Festival and Watford Palace Theatre, who together will present a selection of physical and visual theatre.
Highlights include site specific company Flipping the Bird, Page One Theatre with Made Up Stories From My Unmade Bed and Battersea Arts Centre's second show of the festival Team of Decades by Will Dickie, which casts the audience in the role of a sports team guided by Will as a performer, coach, marital arts teacher and his father.
9. Dirty Dancing
Fans of the musical will get to experience Dirty Dancing like never before as the record-breaking stage production presents a specially choreographed highlights dance sequence for The Waterfront Stage.
10. The Only Way is Downton
Fresh from his run at the Trafalgar Studios, Luke Kempner brings his one-man show voicing characters from the Abbey in a parody of the show which the Huffington Post described as "The energizer bunny of impressionists".
We'd love to know what you are most looking forward to at this years festival. Let us know in the comments below.
