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Little, Bellingham & Adamson in Trafalgar 2 Line-up

Ralf Little (pictured), Lynda Bellingham, Philip Ridley, Samuel Adamson, Lucy Briers and an unauthorised Harry Potter all feature in the new autumn/winter season at the West End’s Trafalgar Studio 2, the smaller 100-seater in ATG’s two auditoria complex on Whitehall.

The new schedule kicks off, from 4 to 27 October 2007 (previews from 2 October), with a double bill of two plays by Jack Thorne, whose previous work includes When You Cure Me at the Bush and TV’s Skins and Shameless. Fanny and Faggot, directed by Stephen Keyworth, examines the disturbing life of child murderer Mary Bell, and Stacy revolves around geeky, DVD-mad Rob who is confused by his relationship with his “good friend” of the title.

The latter stars Ralf Little from TV’s The Royle Family and Two Packets of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. Little’s previous stage credits include On the Ceiling in the West End and a 2004 tour of Billy Liar. The Thorne double bill is presented by Fish Productions, which earlier this year presented Lovely and Misfit, a season of three “undiscovered” Tennessee Williams plays at Studio 2 (See News, 16 Jan 2007).

Next up is Rebecca McCutcheon’s revival of Philip Ridley’s savagely controversial 2000 drama Vincent River, starring Oxo mum Lynda Bellingham playing a mother who’s visited by a teenager with a connection to the death of her son. It runs from 2 to 17 November 2007 (previews from 30 October).

Ridley’s other plays include The Fastest Clock in the Universe, Mercury Fur and, premiered at Soho Theatre in May, Leaves of Glass. Bellingham is best known to TV fans for the likes of All Creatures Great and Small and At Home with the Braithwaites. Her recent stage credits include Sugar Mummies at the Royal Court and Losing Louis, which transferred from Hampstead to Trafalgar Studio 1 in 2005. Vincent River is presented by Old Vic Productions.

Samuel Adamson, whose adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s Spanish film All About My Mother has just opened at the Old Vic, will premiere his original play, Some Kind of Bliss, in a run from 20 November to 15 December 2007. The one-woman play, about a tabloid journalist en route to interview a pop legend, was written especially for actress Lucy Briers who first performed it at a National Theatre Platform.

Adamson’s other credits include acclaimed versions of Shaw’s Saint Joan (currently starring Anne-Marie Duff) and Ibsen’s Pillars of the Community as well as his own comedy Southwark Fair, all seen at the National. Some Kind of Bliss is directed by Toby Frow (Beautiful Thing) and produced by Adam Knight.

The new Trafalgar Studio 2 schedule concludes over Christmas, from 17 December 2007 to 5 January 2008, with children’s show Potted Potter, which was at the Edinburgh Fringe last month and is now touring regionally. The piece takes the Reduced Shakespeare Company approach, with Blue Peter's comic storytelling duo Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner condensing all of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books into an "unauthorised" 60-minute experience. Potted Potter is produced by James Seabright, who brought Lizzie Roper’s Peccadillo Circus to Studio 2 in February (See News, 16 Jan 2007).

- by Terri Paddock

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