Tmesis touring The Dreadful Hours

Liverpool-based Tmesis Theatre has teamed together with local playwright Chris Fittock on its latest production The Dreadful Hours.

The play is a first for the company, known for its physical and dance productions, in terms of working in collaboration with another writer.

The Dreadful Hours is described as “a darkly comic drama exploring the quiet crumbling of love’s first flourish through the lifetime of one couple’s relationship”.

Following a series of workshops with local writers in 2007, Tmesis Theatre – founded by Yorgos Karamalegos and Elinor Randle in 2002 – worked with Fittock for two weeks on a short piece, which experimented with different styles of text and movement. The piece was presented at the Liverpool Everyman’s Everyword festival in July 2008 and evolved into The Dreadful Hours, the full length play set for the stage next month.

Directed by Javier Marzan, The Dreadful Hours opens at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre on Thursday 11 February for three nights before visiting Essex, Manchester, and Worcester with further tour dates to be confirmed.

The production is part of the LEAP dance festival, now in its eighteenth year, which features a year-long programme of dance activity across nine venues in the Merseyside area.

Following its premiere in Liverpool, The Dreadful Hours appears at The Studio in Manchester’s Royal Exchange from 3-6 March 2010.