Theatre News

Munro, Bayley & Waters head season at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs

15 August 2012

The Hampstead Theatre has announced a new season for the Hampstead Downstairs, featuring new plays by Rona Munro and Steve Waters, and Clare Bayley‘s political thriller Blue Sky, presented by Pentabus Theatre.

The season opens with Munro’s Donny’s Brain, directed by Anna Ledwich, which focuses on the confusion suffered by the victim of a car crash whose injuries turn his life upside-down. The play will run from 22 September to 20 October 2012.

Pentabus’ performance of Clare Bayley‘s Blue Sky follows — billed as “a fast-paced thriller about justice and journalism,” the play imagines mysterious and illicit government goings-on in the English countryside.

The play opens 25 October 2012 (preview on 24 October) and runs until 10 November 2012.

The third and final play announced is Steve Waters‘ new work, Ignorance. Directed by Nathan Curry, the play deals with the repercussions of xeneophobia, as they were in 1940s America, and as they are in London today. The play runs for a month from 15 November 2012 to 15 December 2012.

The Hampstead Downstairs space was created specifically to showcase new writing shown outside of commercial pressure or professional reviews, with paying audiences offered the chance to provide feedback.

The Hampstead Downstairs has traditionally eschewed critics, and avoided holding press nights, but this season will feature a press night for Blue Sky, and critics are being invited to the other shows in an informal capacity.