Tobacco Factory Theatres announce August to December season and inaugural repertory season in spring 2018

Spring 2018 will see the inaugural season of the Factory Company – Tobacco Factory Theatres’s own company of actors drawn from across Bristol and further afield. The company will bring together emerging talent and experienced actors.

Shakespeare's Macbeth will kick off the new Factory Company season from 22 February to 7 April with director Adele Thomas (Shakespeare’s Globe, National Theatre, Royal Court) and the AD Mike Tweddle will direct the company in his first play for Tobacco Factory Theatres – Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge from 18 April to 12 May.

The autumn to winter season at the Tobacco Factory has also been announced.

The season will kick off with the return of the biennial ten-day Bristol Festival of Puppetry (1 to 10 September), including animated film screenings at the Watershed and workshops run by senior animators from Aardman and Bristol School of Animation. Yana and the Yeti is one highlight of the festival, created by puppet company Pickled Image and Olivier-nominated playwright Hattie Taylor is about a girl who befriends a yeti.

As part of its autumn Beyond season, which sees five shows performed in venues in and around Bristol Two Man Show from Fringe First winners RashDash and Soho Theatre (13 to 16 September) is performed by Abbi Greenland and Becky Wilkie, who use live music, dance, theatre and comedy to examine our concept of masculinity.

Next in the Beyond season is The Truman Capote Talk Show, brought to Bristol by Richard Jordan Productions and playing at the Redgrave Theatre (24 to 26 September). It's a one-man show about the infamous writer of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Heather (13 to 16 September) by Verity Bargate Award-winning writer Thomas Eccleshare explores what happens when a beloved author reveals a disturbing new truth. An earlier version was developed by Tobacco Factory in 2014 in association with the Bush Theatre.

Mark Rosenblatt will direct the previously announced Waiting for Godot, which will be the first major solo production by Tobacco Factory Theatres. Heather Williams and Nathan Bessell from Myrtle Theatre Company will also bring Up Down Man to . the show is the sequel to Myrtle Theatre's Up Down Boy and tells the story of Matty Butler (played by Nathan Bessell) a man with a learning disability learning to live without support from his parents.

Other highlights include the latest co-production between Opera Project and Tobacco Factory Theatres – Puccini’s Tosca. Comedy musical How To Win Against History by Seiriol Davies comes to the Wardrobe Theatre.

The Christmas season includes The Ugly Duckling (co-produced with Travelling Light) and Living Spit’s Nativity. They will join the previously announced Beauty and the Beast, which transfers to the Tobacco Factory Theatres after opening at Cambridge Junction last Christmas.