Theatre News

Timberlake Wertenbaker and Matthew Dunster feature in Southwark Playhouse autumn season

An American political thriller, a Russian revival by Matthew Dunster and a new play from Timberlake Wertenbaker feature in Southwark Playhouse’s new season

Theo Bosanquet
London Off-West End
The new main house season at Southwark Playhouse opens in September with the UK premiere of Beau Willimon’s Farragut North, a political drama from the writer of TV series House of Cards.

Poster image for Farragut North
Poster image for Farragut North

Running from 13 September to 5 October 2013 (previews from 11 September), the play centres on a bright 25-year-old press secretary for a Democratic presidential candidate who unwittingly unleashes a chain of events he can’t control.

Billed as “an extraordinary journey into the underworld of politics”, Farragut North will be directed by Guy Unsworth and produced by Peter Huntley Productions, with casting still to be announced.

It’s followed, from 15 October-2 November (previews from 9 October), by Matthew Dunster‘s revival of Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Love Girl and the Innocent.

According to press material the play, which is set in a Soviet prison in 1945, hasn’t received a major London outing in 30 years.

Dunster’s recent credits include Before the Party, (Almeida), Mogadishu (Royal Exchange) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Open Air Theatre). His play Children’s Children premiered at the Almeida last year.

The new season concludes with the world premiere of Timberlake Wertenbaker‘s Our Ajax, directed by David Mercatali.

Running from 8-30 November (previews from 6 November), the play, developed from interviews with current and former servicemen, sees Sophocles’ tragedy “brought urgently to life”.

Our Ajax is produced by Natural Perspective and Supporting Wall, who return to Southwark Playhouse for the first time since their production of Philip Ridley‘s Tender Napalm.