Plays cast: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg & Greenwich’s Ghosts
Stephen Unwin is set to direct a major revival of Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at Liverpool Playhouse and Rose Theatre Kingston, with a cast led by comedy actor Ralf Little. This co-production premieres at the Liverpool Playhouse from 5-27 April before running at the Rose Theatre, Kingston from 30 April to 18 May.
Ralf Little is well known for his roles in The Royle Family, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (BBC) and most recently The Café (Sky 1), which he co-wrote. Little will play Bri, a school teacher who is struggling to cope with the demands of his life. His wife, Sheila, will be played by Rebecca Johnson (The Vortex, This Happy Breed) and their daughter Joe is played by Jessica Bastick-Vines (Billy Elliot, Parade). Other cast members include Marjorie Yates (Shameless), Sally Tatum and Owen Oakeshott.
Nichols’s black comedy portrays the love and pain, the anger and strain of a young couple raising a disabled child. Award-winning director Stephen Unwin founded English Touring Theatre and has been Artistic Director at the Rose since 2008.
Tamaryn Payne is to play the role of Regina Engstrand in Sell A Door Theatre Company’s upcoming production of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen at the Greenwich Theatre, which runs from 29 April – 5 May.
Payne is best known for playing Annalise Appleton in Hollyoaks, and can be seen in the upcoming feature film Vendetta.
Helen Alving is trapped in a world where the ‘dead ideas’ preached by Pastor Manders rule outright, and her own family’s insidious legacy threatens scandal. She is desperately trying to conceal her husband’s philandering past by building an orphanage in his name, under the pastor’s guiding hand. But the celebrated return of her estranged son Oswald brings Helen’s ghosts back to haunt her, and all hopes of success are reduced to ashes.Though penned in 1881, it is not hard for us to see the parallels in our own society; the pious leaders of the past replaced with our own custodians of the status quo, and money their new religion.
Ghosts has been adapted by Alfred Enoch, and is directed by Phillip Rowntree and Anna Fox – it runs at the Greenwich Theatre until 5 May.
