Theatre News

Blue Peter's Peter Duncan and Miles Jupp as David Tomlinson in Park Theatre's new season

The season also features a play about Boris Johnson

Miles Jupp and Peter Duncan
Miles Jupp and Peter Duncan
© Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage

The Park Theatre's new season, which runs from January to June, has been announced.

In Park 200, Sean Mathias (No Man's Land) will direct the UK premiere of Martin Sherman's play Gently Down the Stream which coincides with the playwright's 80th birthday.

The piece originally ran at the Public Theater in New York and tells the story of Beau, a retired American pianist living in London, and Rufus, an eccentric young lawyer. The play will run between the 13 February and 16 March.

Opening the season in Park 200 is Rosenbaum's Rescue, written by A Bodin Saphir and directed by Kate Fahy. The piece looks at how 7,000 Danish Jews managed to avoid capture by the Nazis in WWII and runs from 9 January to 9 February 2019.

Elsewhere in the season, Miles Jupp plays Walt Disney actor David Tomlinson – who starred in Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks – in The Life I Lead. The show is directed by Selina Cadell, and has designs from Lee Newby and runs from 18 March to 30 March as part of a tour.

In April, Ché Walker directs the UK premiere of Alexis Michalik's play Intra Muros, about an ageing thespian who is preparing to direct his first theatre class in a maximum security prison, assisted by his former-actress ex-wife Jane and an inexperienced social worker called Alice. The show runs from 4 April to 4 May.

Boris Johnson is the subject of scrutiny in Jonathan Maitland's The last Temptation of Boris Johnson, which runs between 9 May and 8 June. And in June, Lisa Blair directs Meghan Kennedy's Napoli Brooklyn about a family with three daughters all harbouring a secret.

The Park Theatre's smaller space – Park 90 includes a play directed by Rikki Beadle-Blair called My Dad's Gap Year by Tom Wright. The piece follows what happens when a dad takes his teenage son on a gap year to Thailand. It runs between 30 January and 23 February, after The Dame, starring erstwhile Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan. Duncan plays famous pantomime dame Ronald Roy Humphrey who returns home to his northern roots.

Elsewhere in Park 90, We're Staying Right Here, written by Henry Devas will run between 26 February and 23 March, the European premiere of Cry Havoc from Tom Coash runs from 27 March and Ben Alderton's Hell Yes I'm Tough Enough opens on 24 April.

The season ends with Beneath the Blue Rinse by Tom Glover on 21 May and Summer Rolls by Tuyen Do on 18 June.