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Exchange Honours Holman & Irish, Raises Little VoiceDate: 13 May 2003
Manchester's Royal Exchange has announced details for its autumn/winter season, an Irish double bill of JM Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and the UK premiere of Tom Murphy's The Sanctuary Lamp, as well as a revival of Jim Cartwright's The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and a short season celebrating the works of British playwright Robert Holman.
In the main house, the autumn season opens on 10 September 2003 with Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, Twelfth Night, directed by Lucy Bailey who last year staged A Midsummer Night's Dream at the theatre. The new production continues to 25 October.
Running alongside it in the studio will "Quietly Making Noise", a season of plays, readings and other events in honour of Robert Holman. At the centre of the Holman schedule will be productions of his 1988 dual family saga Across Oka, directed by Sarah Frankcom, and 1990's Rafts and Dreams, about a young woman obsessed with cleanliness, directed by Tim Stark. They will be performed by the same ensemble and will run concurrently from 2 to 18 October 2003.
Building on the success of last year's production of Shoot the Crow by Owen McCafferty (whose Scenes from the Big Picture is currently at the NT Cottesloe), the Exchange will present two productions, spanning the past century of Irish playwriting. JM Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, the comedy about country folk which caused riots when it premiered in 1907, will be revived by Exchange joint artistic director Greg Hersov in the main house from 29 October to 29 November 2003, while the UK premiere of Tom Murphy's modern play The Sanctuary Lamp will be directed by Jacob Murray, running from 12 to 29 November in the studio.
The main house schedule will continue with joint artistic Braham Murray's Christmas production of John Dighton's The Happiest Days of Your Life from 3 December 2003 to 17 January 2004. The comedy, set in a boys boarding school after the Second World War, was made into the memorable 1950 film starring Margaret Rutherford and Alastair Sim.
In the new year, the Exchange will present two plays about extraordinary young women. Jim Cartwright's 1993 Olivier Award-winning comedy The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, which later became a film with its original star Jane Horrocks mimicking the singing voices of golden age divas, will be revived in the main house, directed by Sarah Frankcom, from 21 January to 21 February 2004. From 4 to 21 February 2004, it will be joined by Joanna Combes' revival of Scottish playwright David Harrower's first play Knives in Hens, a fable about isolated lives and dangerous desires.
- by Terri Paddock
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