Toronto production of Sunday Father
Tweet

Hampstead Grants Euro Premiere to Sunday Father

Sunday Father, the latest play from Canadian Adam Pettle, will receive its European premiere at London's Hampstead Theatre this summer. It opens on 15 July 2003 (previews 9 July) for a limited four-week season to 9 August.

After their parents' divorce, brothers Alan and Jed grew up seeing their father only on Sundays. Now with a wife and son of his own, Jed finds himself plunged into a custody battle that mirrors what happened to him as a child - a battle of enmity and devotion that feels achingly familiar. Sunday Father gives an account of two brothers learning how to be men and fighting to maintain their senses of family, faith and friendship in a world changing around them.

Sunday Father had its world premiere in January 2003 at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto, where the play is set, and starred the playwright’s real-life brother Jordan Pettle. It was commissioned by CanStage (one of Canada's leading contemporary theatre companies) in partnership with Manchester's Royal Exchange. Pettle's other plays Zadie's Shoes and Therac 25.

The UK production of Sunday Father is directed by Rupert Goold, who last year directed Pete Postlethwaite in his Whatsonstage.com Award-winning performance in Justin Butcher's Scaramouche Jones. Casting has not yet been confirmed.

Currently at Hampstead is Tamsin Oglesby's Anglo-American comedy of confused manners, US and Them, which stars Hugh Bonneville, Harriet Walter, Siobhan Redmon and Matthew Marsh. The world premiere production opens on 28 May (previews 22 May) and continues to 28 June 2003 (See News, 23 Apr 2003, as well as this week's 20 Questions with Bonneville).

- by Terri Paddock

Related Content