CityLife

What's in store at The Royal Exchange?

Matthew Dunster

THE Royal Exchange’s productions for spring and summer next year include a new stage adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four; Shakespeare’s furiously funny The Comedy Of Errors; George Bernard Shaw’s much-loved Pygmalion, the basis for the famous musical My Fair Lady; and a fresh take on Brandon Thomas’s rollicking farce Charley’s Aunt.

The season opens on February 24 with the world premiere of an electrifying new stage version of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s nightmare vision of a totalitarian society, which is now seen by many as the definitive novel of the 20th century.

The central character, Winston Smith, rewrites history for the Ministry of Truth. But when he’s handed a note that says simply, “I love you”, by a woman he hardly knows, he decides to risk everything in a search for the real truth.

Orwell’s novel, written in 1949, has been adapted and directed by Oldham- born actor, director and playwright Matthew Dunster (pictured), whose recent Exchange credits include MEN Theatre Award-nominated Macbeth and his own brilliant, award-winning play, You Can See The Hills, in The Studio. Other recent credits include The Frontline and Troilus And Cressida at London’s Globe Theatre. The production runs until March 27.

The Comedy Of Errors, Shakespeare’s tale of mistaken identity, continues the season from March 31 to May 8, helmed by guest director Roxana Silbert, a former artistic director of Paines Plough who is currently associate director for the Royal Shakespeare Company. This is the story of two sets of identical twins, both master and servant, accidentally separated at birth.

Huge critical acclaim

This is followed by a major revival of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion from May 12. Memorably retold in Lerner and Loewe’s musical My Fair Lady, the play tells the tale of Henry Higgins who makes a bet with Colonel Pickering that he can turn a cockney flower girl into a lady. He sets out to change Eliza Doolittle completely and equip her for life in high society, but he reckons without the spirit and strength of Eliza herself.

Running until June 31, the production is directed by Royal Exchange artistic director Greg Hersov, whose recent Exchange credits include The Tempest with Pete Postlethwaite, Widowers’ Houses with Roger Lloyd Pack, and the theatre’s current production The Entertainer, with David Schofield.

Greg also directed Palace Of The End, a triptych of monologues about the Iraq war by award-winning Canadian playwright Judith Thompson, which was first seen earlier this year in The Studio at the Royal Exchange and went on to play to standing ovations and huge critical acclaim at the Galway Arts Festival and at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

It is also nominated in several categories in this year’s MEN Theatre Awards.The main-house season concludes with a new production of Brandon Thomas’s farcical college caper Charley’s Aunt from June 22.

It centres on the antics of Oxford students, Charley Wyckham and Jack Chesney, who want to propose marriage to two lovely young women. When the proper young ladies refuse to visit without a chaperone, the pair blackmail their eccentric friend Fancourt Babberley to pose as Charley’s “aunt from Brazil”.

The production, running until August 7, is directed by Royal Exchange founding artistic director Braham Murray.

The Studio’s full programme has not yet been announced but one of the highlights will undoubtedly be Powder Monkey, a new children’s play by Royal Exchange associate director Amanda Dalton, running from June 3-19.

A tender and thought-provoking play intended for everyone over nine, it is inspired by children in war situations and child soldiers.