Tag Archives: Trafalgar Transformed

#HayleyAtwell and a superb cast bring @thepridewestend back to the London stage #theatre #review

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So last night was opening for the third installment of Trafalgar Transformed. Starring Hayley Atwell and Matthew Horne as two well known names that make up half the cast, The Pride is an award winning play directed by Jamie Lloyd.

It follows three people Oliver, Philip and Sylvia, who in two separate time periods (the 1950s and the present day) are all brought together in a complicated love triangle. The through riding theme is homosexuality and sexual liberation and not how the outside community deal with it, but how those directly involved approach their own complicated relationships given the attitudes and oppressions of their timeframes.Screen Shot 2013-08-14 at 08.50.19

The play, cleverly intertwines between the two time periods; the future providing a more relatable and humorous approach, with a stronger message underlining.  Although billed as the lead role, Hayley Atwell plays second fiddle to the superb Al Weaver, who portrays Oliver, the only character in both periods who is happy to admit his sexuality and drives the experiences that occur. His sharp interchange between the two eras is the most challenging out of all the actors and he handles this with ease and gives the audience strong distinctions between his character of past and present. Atwell, is a superb support, as an audience member you relate strongly to her Sylvia of the 1950’s as its not far off to many period roles you have seen her on screen before. Bring her to present day though and you see Atwell embrace a more modern role which initially surprises the audience but also allows you to warm to her.

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Harry Hadden-Paton who plays Philip is a more somber, cautious character, in the past he battles hiding his real sexuality behind a marriage, until Oliver comes into his life and in some respects brings him to life in his true form. However all the restraints of the 1950s causes inevitable turmoil and destruction and Philips wife Sylvia can only watch her marriage unravel. In present day Paton plays the estranged partner to Oliver and his infidelity and Paton plays a strong clear calming balance to Weaver’s much more flamboyant take.

The real stand out, is Matthew Horne, used sparingly as a variety of characters, Horne demonstrates his versatility as an actor from a Nazi dressing rent boy (which provides some much needed light relief) through to a cheeky chappy know-it-all but actually knows very little magazine editor. These characters may be written as relatively extreme in the script but his ease in transformation made you wait with baited breath for his next appearance.Screen Shot 2013-08-14 at 08.51.17

Alexi Kaye Campbell’s fantastic writing is brought to life brilliantly with the synced cast who deliver the quick pace with ease. You can see why this play was award winning when it first premiered at the Royal Court in 2008, it brings light and dark contrasts on the subject of sexual liberation and more importantly relationships, and has a fantastic cast to pull it off. If you can get yourself a ticket, are interested in the subject and love good theatre, then this is definitely one to watch.

4 Stars

You can purchase tickets for The Pride from its official website here

And follow @thepridewestend on Twitter

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Hayley Atwell to take the stage in multi award winning play The Pride @traftransformed #theatre

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Jamie Lloyd’s third production for Trafalgar Transformed is the multi award-winning play The Pride, written by Alexi Kaye Campbell. Starring Hayley Atwell (Captain America, Life of Crime, The Faith Machine, A View from the Bridge) as Sylvia, Harry Hadden-Paton (Posh, She Stoops to Conquer, Flare Path) as Philip, Al Weaver (Inadmissible Evidence, Coram Boy, Hamlet) as Oliver and Mathew Horne (Gavin and Stacey, Bad Education, Charley’s Aunt) as The Man/Peter/The Doctor.

The Pride follows the critically acclaimed The Hothouse, starring Simon Russell Beale and John Simm, which continues at the Trafalgar Studios until 3 August 2013 and Macbeth with James McAvoy.

Screen Shot 2013-07-16 at 12.54.15Directed by Jamie Lloyd (Donmar’s Passion, Old Vic’s The Duchess of Malfi, National Theatre’s She Stoops to Conquer) with design by Soutra Gilmour, winner of the 2012 Evening Standard award for Best Design for Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Warehouse, The Pride runs from 8 August until 9 November 2013.

When the play premiered Upstairs at the Royal Court in 2008, only 85 people a night got to see this play come to life, however now, it will open to a much larger and diverse audience in its new London home.

As is the case with Trafalgar Transformed productions, The Pride will be accompanied by an eclectic mini-festival of extra events, which will, this time, explore and analyse contemporary gay life and the history of gay theatre.

Whats it all about?

Screen Shot 2013-07-16 at 12.54.47Philip, Oliver and Sylvia exist in a complex love triangle, which spans over half a century, living and loving simultaneously in 1958 and the present against a background of changing attitudes towards homosexuality. Past and present worlds grind together and melt apart, yet the future and its promise of sexual liberation remains ever elusive, as societal repression gives way to self-deception.

The Pride is Alexi Kaye Campbell’s hilarious and heart-felt landmark play about courage, compassion and the fear of loneliness in life’s journey towards self-discovery.

Tickets, Tickets please! 

As part of the Trafalgar Transformed season all tickets will be £15 on Mondays. Half of these will be made available through a special outreach scheme led by the Ambassador Theatre Group Creative Learning Department, targeted towards schools and first-time theatregoers. The other half will be released monthly to the public on the first day of each month for 24 hours, starting on 1 August 2013*, and will be available online or at Trafalgar Studios box office. Additionally, day seats will be available at £10 for all performances, Tuesday through Saturday.

* In September, the tickets will be released on Monday 2 September, as the first day of the month falls on a Sunday.

Daily Day seats will be available for £10. These are limited to one ticket per person and tickets can only be collected two hours before the performance time.

Keeping it social!

Website: www.thepridewestend.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/traftransformed

Twitter:  @traftransformed

A little bit more about the cast

Hayley Atwell was last on stage in Alexi’s The Faith Machine at the Royal Court, also directed by Jamie Lloyd. Previous stage credits include A View from The Bridge at the Duke of York’s Theatre (for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress), Major Barbaraat the National Theatre (for which she received an Ian Charleson Commendation in 2009) and Women Beware Women for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Hayley’s television credits include Life of Crime (for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Award at the TV Choice Awards), Black Mirror – series two, Be Right Back, Restless, Falcon: The Blindman of Seville and The Silent and the Damned, Any Human Heart, Pillars of the Earth(Nominated for Best Actress in a Mini Series, Golden Globe Awards 2011, Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini Series, Gemini Awards 2011), The Prisoner,Mansfield Park and Ruby in the Smoke. Her film credits include All Is By My Side, The Man, The Sweeney, Captain America – The First Avenger, The Duchess (Nominated for Best Supporting Actress, British Independent Film Awards 2008, Nominated for ALFS Award for British Supporting Actress of the Year, London Critics Circle Film Awards 2008) Brideshead Revisited,How About You and Cassandra’s Dream.

Harry Hadden-Paton’s stage credits include The Changeling at the Young Vic, She Stoops to Conquer at the National Theatre, No Naughty Bits at Hampstead Theatre, Flarepath at the Haymarket Theatre, The Prince of Hamburg at the Donmar Warehouse, Posh at the Royal Court Theatre, The Rivals at Southwark Playhouse and The Importance of Being Earnest at Bath Theatre Royal/National Tour/West End. Harry’s television credits include Drifters, Silk, Richard II, Waking the Dead and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard and his film credits include About Time, Having You, The Deep Blue Sea, In the Loop and La Vie En Rose.

Al Weaver’s stage credits include Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Warehouse, The Seagull at the Arcola Theatre, The House of Games at the Almeida Theatre, How to Curse at the Bush Theatre, Coram Boy at the National Theatre, and Hamlet at the Old Vic. Al’s television credits includeSouthcliffe, The Frontier, Secret State, Sherlock – The Blind Banker, Survivors, Personal Affairs and The Devils Whore. His film credits includeHoneymooner, Powder, Me and Orson Welles, Marie Antoinette and The Merchant of Venice.

Mathew Horne’s stage credits include Charley’s Aunt (Menier Chocolate Factory) and Entertaining Mr Sloane at Trafalgar Studios. He is best known on screen for his regular roles in Gavin & Stacey, Bad Education and The Catherine Tate Show. Other television credits include Hey Diddly Dee,Death in Paradise, Sinbad, Marple, Worried about the Boy, Horne and Corden, Roman’s Empire, Teachers, 20 Things to do Before you’re 30 and The Proposal.

Alexi Kaye-Campbell’s first play was The Pride, staged at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, directed by Jamie Lloyd, and the winner of an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an affiliate theatre, a Critic’s Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the John Whiting award for Best New Play.  Alexi’s second play, Apologia was staged at The Bush Theatre and was short listed for The John Whiting Award and nominated for Best Play at the Writers Guild Awards 2009. His fourthplay, The Faith Machine, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre and his current play, Bracken Moor(for Shared Experience) is currently running at the Tricycle Theatre. He is currently working on his first feature film, Woman in Gold, with Simon Curtis for BBC Films and Origin Pictures.

 

 

 

Full Cast for Howard Pinter’s The Hothouse @traftransformed

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Theatre lovers get excited – more cast members have been announced for Trafalgar Studios’ production of Harold Pinter’s The Hot House

John Heffernan (Lush), Harry Melling (Lamb), Clive Rowe (Tubb), Christopher Timothy (Lobb) and Indira Varma (Miss Cutts) will join the previously announced Simon Russell Beale (Roote) and John Simm (Gibbs) to complete the cast for The Hothouse, Jamie Lloyd Productions’ second show for Trafalgar Studios.

The Hothouse is part of an exciting season of work for Trafalgar Transformed, a joint initiative between director Jamie Lloyd (Donmar’s Passion, Broadway’s Cyrano de Bergerac, the National Theatre’s She Stoops to Conquer, Royal Court’s The Pride) and Howard Panter. It comes hot on the heels of the critically acclaimed and sold out Macbeth, starring James McAvoy. The Hothouse, with design by award-winning Soutra Gilmour, runs from 4 May to 3 August.

L-R John Simm, Simon Russell Beale & Harry Melling in The Hothouse, Trafalgar Studios, photo Jay Brooks2 copy

Here’s what the play is all about:

It’s Christmas Day in a nameless state-run mental institution where the inmates are subjected to a tirade of mindless cruelty. A maniacal and self-obsessed leader breeds a contagion of hierarchical savagery amongst his staff, who thrive on a noxious diet of delusion and deceit.

The day got off to a lousy start!  A death and a birth.  Absolutely bloody scandalous!  Is it too much to ask – to keep the place clean?

Under a veil of devilish wit and subversive humour, Pinter’s biting political commentary on the perils of unchecked power is as vital and pertinent today as when it was written in the 50’s.

What times will it be showing and how much are the tickets? 

Performances:                                    Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm, Thursday and Saturday at 2:30pm

Ticket prices:                                       £10 – £54.50

As part of the Trafalgar Transformed season all tickets will be £15 on Mondays. Half of these will be made available through a special outreach scheme led by the Ambassador Theatre Group Creative Learning Department, targeted towards schools and first-time theatregoers. The other half will be released monthly to the public on the first day of each month for 24 hours, starting on 1 May 2013*, and will be available online or at Trafalgar Studios box office. (* Monday 6 May is excluded)

Daily Day seats will be available for £10. These are limited to one ticket per person and tickets can only be collected two hours before the performance time.

Where can I find out more? 

www.thehothousewestend.com

Happy Theatre Going!