Full cast announced for Potter’s Brimstone & Treacle at Arcola

Joining Rupert Friend (see previous announcement) are Matti Houghton (‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore at the Liverpool Everyman, Ditch at the Old Vic Tunnels), Tessa Peake Jones (The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder at the National Theatre) and Ian Redford (Love the Sinner at the National Theatre).

Billed as “a twisted allegory about fear, faith, morality, and the incomprehensible randomness of good and evil” the play is set in North London in the summer of 1977. As Britain prepares to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee, a middle-class, middle-aged couple struggle to come to terms with the incapacitation of their daughter following a hit-and-run car accident. Out of nowhere, an apparently respectable young man arrives on their doorstep to change their lives forever…

Brimstone and Treacle was written for television by Potter in 1976 as part of the Play for Today strand but withdrawn before transmission and not broadcast until 1987. In 1977 Potter adapted it for the stage and it premiered at Sheffield Crucible. This is its first major London revival.

Rupert Friend made his West End debut in 2010 with The Little Dog Laughed at the Garrick Theatre. His film work includes Five Days of War, The Young Victoria and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas.

Brimstone and Treacle is directed by Amelia Sears with design by
Alex Eales, lighting by Richard Howell and sound by Elena Pena. It
is presented by SEArED in association with the Arcola.

SEArED will be hosting a series of post-show readings of other stage plays by
Dennis Potter with specially invited guests,on 9, 16, 23, 30 May. after the performances, starting at 9.45pm. There will also be post-show discussions on 14 and 28 May.