Unicorn Theatre announces winter season

The Unicorn Theatre has today announced its new season, featuring 11 productions from new and returning artists. The venue welcomes back long term collaborators including Tim Crouch, Sally Cookson and Ignace Cornelissen, while also seeing premiere runs from international artists including CAMPO and Milo Rau.

An in-house sci-fi production of Laika by Bryony Hannah and Avye Leventis arrives on 24 September. The show is a puppetry and music-filled exploration of the year 2057. The season also welcomes back Chris Thorpe with a new adaptation of Beowulf directed by Justin Audibert. The retelling, running from 1 October, is Thorpe’s first new production at the Unicorn since Hannah, his 2014 adaptation of Dr Faustus.

From 17 November, the Unicorn hosts The Velveteen Rabbit for its fourth run over the Christmas season, directed by artistic director Purni Morell. At the same time, Sally Cookson’s Boing! makes a return for its second Christmas season.

In 2018, Campo Arts presents Wild Life FM from 12 January, a play-gig-radio show exploring the idea of self-discovery. Clore Theatre’s Seesaw, written by Stewart Melton, debuts on 26 January, giving a lesson on the importance of cooperation in friendship.

In February, Ignace Cornelissen reinterprets the story of Othello for younger audiences, directed by Ian Nicholson. Over Easter, Tim Crouch premieres his new play Beginners aimed at those nine and over. It sees three families trapped in a holiday cottage during a summer holiday.

Campo Arts returns in April with the controversial Five Easy Pieces, directed by Milo Rau. The show's premise has seven children aged nine to 14 recreate the interviews and statements of those affected by Marc Dutroux, the notorious '90s serial killer.

Morell said: "In a world that is putting up walls and cutting back, the need to find things that bring us together is ever more important. This season is about humanity – asking us all to test the limits of our own empathy and understanding and, I hope, stretching each of us just that little bit further to understand one another."