Madeleine Sami in No. 2
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No. 2 & Exclude Me Extend London Fringe Seasons

Two acclaimed productions on the London fringe which were due to close this past weekend - No. 2 at the King's Head in Islington and Exclude Me at the Chelsea Theatre - have announced extensions.

New Zealander Toa Fraser's No. 2, which opened at the King's Head on 4 February, has announced a new three-week booking period covering performances from 25 March to 13 April 2003. The extension fills a hole created in the theatre's schedule earlier this month when the planned six-week premiere season of John Michael Heuer's Grimm Fantasies, starring Susannah Doyle and Brian Protheroe, was indefinitely postponed (See News, 11 Mar 2003).

New Zealander Toa Fraser's No. 2 was previously seen in 2000 at the Edinburgh Fringe. The one-woman play revolves around cigar-smoking matriarch Nanna Maria who calls her New Zealand Fijian family together for a feast at which she plans to name her successor. It's a day of drinking, quarrelling, romancing, singing and break-dancing. The play stars 22-year-old Madeleine Sami, who won the New Zealand Theatre Award for Best Actress for another Fraser play, Bare.

In Chelsea, Judith Johnson's Exclude Me opened on 17 February and had been scheduled to close on 15 March 2003. It has now extended bookings by four weeks to 12 April. A follow-up to Johnson's last play, The Singing Group, the new piece looks at the issues within education today through the eyes of a dedicated teacher who has been pushed to his limits by an unruly pupil.

Exclude Me is directed by John Burgess and stars Jonathan Guy Lewis, Kay Bridgeman, Katie Donnison and Michael Obiora.

- by Terri Paddock

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