Theatre News

Jaime Winstone Gets Hampstead Stage Debut

| London's West End |

20 August 2009

Jaime Winstone, the actress daughter of Ray Winstone and star of films including Kidulthood, will make her stage acting debut at Hampstead Theatre next month in Edward Dick‘s revival of Philip Ridley’s The Fastest Clock in the Universe, which runs from 22 September to 17 October 2009 (previews from 17 September).

The production, co-produced with Leicester Curve, is part of Hampstead’s 50th anniversary season, Anthony Clark‘s final season as artistic director (See News, 30 June 2009). Alongside Winstone, the cast also features Finbar Lynch, Neet Mohan, Alec Newman and Eileen Page.

Philip Ridley’s second play, The Fastest Clock in the Universe was first performed at Hampstead in 1992 with a young Jude Law in the cast, and won Ridley the Evening Standard‘s Most Promising Playwright award. This production marks its first major revival.

The play is set in a room above a long-abandoned fur factory in London’s East End, where 30 year-old Cougar (Alec Newman) is preparing for his ‘nineteenth’ birthday party yet again. The arrival of young and beautiful Foxtrot (Neet Mohan) ignites a chain reaction in which narcissism, desire and an obsessive fear of ageing are played out to their extremes.

Jaime Winstone makes her stage debut playing Foxtrot’s pregnant fiancée Sherbet Gravel. Her film and TV credits include BAFTA-nominated series Dead Set, Dagenham Girls, Boogie Woogie, controversial thriller Donkey Punch, Daddy’s Girl, Love Letter, Kidulthood, Bullet Boy, Goldplated, Vincent (alongside her father) and Totally Frank.

The Fastest Clock in the Universe is directed by Edward Dick, marking his Hampstead Theatre debut, and designed by Mark Thompson, with lighting by Rick Fisher and sound by Adrienne Quartly.

Following its Hamsptead run, the production transfers to the Leicester Curve, where it runs from 21 October to 14 November 2009.