Royal & Derngate announce winter season

Royal & Derngate has announced its autumn and winter season, with a host of new and touring productions featured across the venue's stages.

As previously announced, the venue's Made in Northampton season will continue with productions of Sam Holcroft's Rules for Living in September (directed by former artistic director Simon Godwin), followed by The Wardrobe Ensemble's Education, Education, Education, devised by the company and directed by Jesse Jones.

Harold Pinter's The Caretaker will receive a co-production with Bristol Old Vic from Tuesday 17 to Saturday 28 October, directed by Christopher Haydon. The show has also found its titular performer in Patrice Naiambana, who starred as Othello at the RSC in 2009.

Made in Northampton will then continue in 2018 with a new adaptation of E.M Forster's A Passage to India, developed by simple8, as well as Agatha Christie's Love from a Stranger, directed by Lucy Bailey.

The festive season sees another Made in Northampton offering in the form of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, adapted by Jessica Swale, with music by Joe Stilgoe and direction from Max Webster. The show runs on the Royal stage from 28 November to 31 December.

The Royal stage will also host a number of touring dramas over the course of the season, including Willy Russell's Shirley Valentine, Andrea Dunbar's Rita, Sue and Bob Too (directed by Max Stafford-Clark), fresh from its run at the Royal Court. Mischief Theatre's The Play That Goes Wrong and the RSC's Hamlet, starring Paapa Essiedu, will also visit the complex.