Jo Caird: Some Theatre Tips for 2012

It’s
going to be a great year for Philip Ridley fans with a 21st-anniversary production of The Pitchfork Disney
opening at the Arcola on 25 January and a new play called
Shivered running from 7 March at the Southwark
Playhouse. There are also whispers abroad – but no details yet –
that the Southwark’s startling 2011 production of Ridley’s most
recent two-hander, Tender Napalm, will be touring
the UK from May and returning to London in June.

Elsewhere
in January Abi Morgan‘s Lovesong
is coming to the Lyric Hammersmith on tour. I
interviewed Morgan and Frantic Assembly
directors Scott
Graham and Steven Hoggett about the show (which made me cry when I
read the script) and can’t wait to see it (opens 11 January).
Something else that caught my eye on the physical theatre side of
things is Hofesh
Shechter
Company’s dance/music/art collaboration piece, Survivor,
running at the Barbican from 12 to 14 January. It features a live band of 30
and a set by sculptor Antony Gormley.

February
sees A Few Man Fridays, a new work from
homelessness charity/theatre company extraordinaire Cardboard
Citizens, open at the Riverside Studios (from 10 February). If their
last public show, Mincemeat, is anything to go by,
A Few Man Fridays will be superlative (for more on
this company, see my blog post from 14 December below). I’m also looking
very much looking forward to Sean Holmes‘s and Filter Theatre’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream (from 11 February). I caught a
work-in-progress performance of this show back at Latitude Festival
2010 and adored it, so can’t wait to see how it’s evolved since then.

Opening
at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford on 1 February and touring
til 17 March is the world premiere of a play I’m very curious about.
David Seidler wrote the stage version of The King’s
Speech before writing and winning an Oscar for the film of
the same name. Adrian Noble directs. Also in March comes a new
Complicité show, an adaptation of Bulganov’s novel The
Master and Margarita (opening 15 March). I’m ashamed to
admit that I haven’t seen much of the company’s work but I found A
Disappearing Number absolutely enthralling when it was
revived in 2010.

In
April I’m looking forward to the Young Vic’s adaptation of Jung
Chang’s 1991 novel Wild Swans, which stars Katie
Leung from the Harry Potter films as Chang herself (from 13 April).
It’s part of World Stages London, the collaboration between eight
London producing theatres, so I’ll be interested to taste the fruit
of this ambitious partnership. On 10 April The Strange
Undoing of Prudencia Hart, a show inspired by Sir Walter
Scott’s Border Ballads and adapted by
Midsummer writer David Greig begins a UK and
international tour. It got great reviews last year when it toured Scotland and played at the Edinburgh Fringe, and looks like a lot of fun.

Oh
dear, my enthusiasm for all these shows is turning what was supposed
to be a concise blog post into a dissertation, so I’ll have to dash
through the rest of the year.

Here
we go…in May there’s a new Frantic Assembly/National
Theatre Wales show, Little Dogs at the Patti
Pavilion in Swansea (from 9 May) and, for puppetry fans, a Little
Angel classic, The Ugly Duckling, featuring a set
and puppets from recently appointed MBE, Little Angel co-founder
Lyndie Wright (from 19 May). June sees the return of the glorious
You Me Bum Bum Train in an as yet undisclosed
location in Canary Wharf (from 22 June), as well as Belarus Free
Theatre’s Minsk, 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker at
the Young Vic, which will be bonkers, but important viewing (from 12
June). Heading into summer, it’s all about Shakespeare, with
Desdemona, a staged concert performance at the
Barbican (19 and 20 July), Mark Rylance in Richard III
and Twelfth Night at the Globe (from 14 July and
22 September respectively) and Jonathan Pryce’s King
Lear at the Almeida (from 31 August).

I
could go on into autumn and winter, but on reflection, the above is
probably more than enough to be getting on with. So it just leaves me
to ask what shows
you’re looking forward to in 2012? Let me know by commenting below
this post, or get in touch via Twitter. Have a great year of theatre!