London
The eight monologues will each respond to a different decade of the NHS’s 70 year-lifespan
Casting has been announced for The Greatest Wealth, a new series of monologues curated by Lolita Chakrabarti and performed at the Old Vic to commemorate 70 years of the NHS.
Jade Anouka, Louise English, Dervla Kirwan, Ruth Madeley, Art Malik, Meera Syal, Sophie Stone and David Threlfall will perform in the show, which will also have music performed live by Gloria Obianyo.
Directed by Adrian Lester and funded by the TS Eliot estate, the event will see eight specially-chosen monologues performed twice across the week commencing 25 June. They are written by Moira Buffini, Chakrabarti, Seiriol Davies, Matilda Ibini, Courttia Newland, Syal, Jack Thorne and Paul Unwin, and will respond to each decade since the NHS was first launched in Manchester in 1948.
The monologues from 1940s to 1970s (by Thorne, Unwin, Syal and Buffini) will be performed on 25 June, while the monologues by Chakrabarti, Newland, Ibini and Davies, covering from the 1980s to the present day, will be performed on 26 June. On 29 June all eight monologues will be performed across a single evening.
The Old Vic is offering 70 tickets per performance priced at five pounds for NHS workers (ten pounds for the Friday double bill). The performances will be live sign language interpreted in British Sign Language (BSL).