Theatre News

Latitude Announces Sixth Annual Festival Line-up

The line-up for the sixth edition of Latitude Festival, held at Henham Park Estate, Suffolk, from 14 to 17 July 2011, has been announced.

Sadler’s Wells return to perform on the Waterfront Stage alongside English National Ballet whilst theatre highlights include the Lyric Hammersmith’s Sean Holmes working with Spymonkey and Peepolykus to reimagine Jekyll and Hyde.

Speaking at a press launch at the Hospital Club last night (14 March 2011) managing director of Festival Republic and festival founder and creator Melvin Benn announced that Latitude had agreed a new 15-year lease with Henham Park Estate which he said would secure the future of the festival.

Logistically Benn went on to say that festival organisers would install a second bridge across the central lake,  allowing more people to view the floating Waterfront Stage as well as easing traffic flow around the site. The extended tenancy also means four boreholes can be drilled, providing water to improve toilet facilities across the festival.

Latitude will also receive increased television coverage, partnering with Sky Arts to broadcast a two-hour show live from the site each evening as well as an hour-long round-up of proceedings.

Tickets, which went on sale at 7pm last night, are available from the Latitude Festival website.

Outdoor Theatre and Theatre Arena

Highlights in the Theatre Arena and Outdoor Theatre include the Lyric Hammersmith returning to the Latitude with a reimagining Jekyll and Hyde created exclusively for the festival. A “theatrical extravaganza”, the production has been created in conjunction with Spymonkey and Peepolykus and will be directed by Sean Holmes and written by Joel Horwood.

The Bush Theatre return to Latitude for the fourth year with the “spine-chilling graveside tale about faith, madness and murder, Anthony Weigh‘s The Flooded Grave which will be performed in a hidden location as darkness falls on the festival.

Coney and the BAC‘s The Loveliness Principal is a “challenge from Rabbit for you to discover, a hunt for something precious and remarkable”. As well as promising sightings of Rabbit across the festival site, the BAC’s Scratch innovative development artists will present new ideas for theatre at Latitude.

Theatre company Fuel return to Latitude with comedy thriller The Summer House, devised by Will Adamsdale, Neil Haigh, Matthew Steer and John Wright and directed by John Wright. The company also present 2004 Perrier Award winner Will Adamsdale‘s one-man self help satire Jackson’s Way which recently played 26 London venues in 26 days.

Paines Plough in association with the National Student Drama Festival (NSDF) have commissioned performance poet Kate Tempest write her first play which promises to deliver “her trademark lyrical ferocity”.

Following their Charged season, which played the Soho Theatre in November last year, and their upcoming Re-Charged which brings a powerful trio of plays to the Soho opening on 23 March, Clean Break will present Dancing Bears by Sam Holcroft and Fatal Light by Chloe Moss, directed by Tessa Walker and Lucy Morrison.

Former poet laureate Andrew Motion‘s playwriting debut Incoming will be restaged at Latitude following its premiere production at the fifth annual HighTide Festival. A powerful examination of the disturbing issues surrounding war and how hard it can be for those left behind, Incoming tells the story of Danny, a soldier killed in Afghanistan, his grieving widow Steph and their young son Jack.

Writer and performer Tim Crouch of News from Nowhere presents the fourth of his series of Shakespeare plays for young people I, Malvolio retelling the story of Twelfth Night in the Theatre Arena, whilst Company of Angels and the Bristol Old Vic collaborate to present I, Peaseblossom, part of Crouch’s trilogy Fairymonsterghost.

Pop-up theatre producers Theatre Delicatessen, who recently took up temporary residence and presented work in a derelict building on London’s Picton Place, will remount their all-female production of Isben’s A Doll’s House, a new imagining that challenges the complacent modern view that women and men are equal in the eyes of the law, the home and wider society.

NSDF present a new version of Robin Hood by Chris Thorpe following their site specific staging of The Wind in the Willows last year. The production, which will be staged in the green woods at Latitude, is billed as an adventure that is “not for the faint hearted”.

Also presenting work in the Theatre Arena and Outdoor Theatre at Latitude this year are Theatre503, Forward Theatre, Ella Hickson, nabokov, Theatre Uncut, Lab Collective, Whippet Productions, Out Of Chaos and Pentabus.

Literary Salon

Elsewhere on the festival site Northern Stage, Non Zero One, Third Angel, Il Pixel Rosso, Forest Fringe and Red Shift will present work from the Literary Salon.

Newcastle’s Northern Stage and Sheffield-based Third Angel collaborate to present Faye Draper‘s Tea Is An Evening Meal, with shared personal experiences and gathered stories presented in a “new and intimate work” which allows audiences a glimpse into other people’s meal time experiences.

Forest Fringe will transform the Salon into a place of “unlikely hidden encounters” for three nights during the festival. Each night the space will be re-imagined by a different Forest Fringe artist with experiences created by Bristol-based Tinned Fingers’ The Last Romance Club (Ever), Brian Lobel curating Cruising for Art and Andy Field hosting Eponymous, a surreal re-enactment of the whole festival in the space of a single evening.

Technology and art combine with work from Red Shift who return to Latitude with The Invisible Show II, “crowd embedded live theatre” where only those with the required wireless headphones will be able to spot the the smallest tell-tales which make up the performance. Il Pixel Rosso bring their And The Birds Fell From The Sky to the festival, with audiences sat in wheelchairs and equipped with video goggles and headphones, becoming part of a bizarre messenger story.

Waterfront Stage

Floating on the surface of the central lake, the Waterfront Stage last year saw Sadler’s Wells present Matthew Bourne‘s Swan Lake Act II and a re-working of Torsion choreographed by Russell Maliphant. The company return to perform at Latitude this year, with specific performances to be announced. English National Ballet return to Latitude and will present pas de deux from two ballets, Carmen and Don Quixote.

Full listings and ticket information can be found on the Latitude Festival website