Theatre News

Outhwaite & Walker Go Downstairs at Hampstead

Tamzin Outhwaite, Nicola Walker and Claudie Blakley will star in the world premiere of Amelia Bullmore’s new play Di and Viv and Rose, as part of the Hampstead Downstairs season.

Anna Mackmin, who directed Bullimore’s award-winning Mammals will helm the production, which runs from 14 September to 15 October 2011.

Outhwaite, who plays Di, was recently seen on stage in the Menier Chocolate Factory revival of Sweet Charity, which transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket last year, while her other stage credits include Boeing Boeing (Comedy), Breathing Corpses and Flesh Wound (Royal Court) and Oliver (London Palladium).

Nicola Walker (Viv) recently starred in Seasons Greetings at the National, and previously in Mrs Klein (Almeida Theatre), Gethsemane (National) and Relocated at the Royal Court. Her extensive television credits include Being Human, Inside Men, Spooks, Luther and The Turn of the Screw.

Claudie Blakley plays Rose. Her stage credits include most recently The Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre.  Her other credits include Attempts on Her Life (National) Love and Money (Royal Exchange and Young Vic) and A Girl in A New Car with A Man (Royal Court).

Aged 18, three women join forces. Life is fun. Living is intense. Together they feel unassailable. Di and Viv and Rose is billed as “an hilarious and thoughtful exploration of friendship’s impact on life and life’s impact on friendship”.

Hampstead Downstairs was established by new Hampstead artistic director Edward Hall for new writing. It enables writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences to trial new work in a studio environment “free from the pressures of commercial interests or formal reviews”, but in front of a paying audience.