A Disappearing Number - Novello Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
FOLLOWING successful runs at the Barbican in 2007 and 2008, Complicite’s multi award-winning play, A Disappearing Number, returns to the capital – to the Novello Theatre – where it runs for just 19 performances – from September 14 (previews from September 10) to September 25, 2010.
The original cast – David Annen, Firdous Bamji, Paul Bhattacharjee, Hiren Chate, Divya Kasturi, Chetna Pandya, Saskia Reeves and Shane Shambhu – who also devised the piece, will reunite for the new London staging.
A Disappearing Number weaves together several stories, in the process, crossing decades and continents.
In London, a man attempts to unravel the secrets of his lover. In Bangalore, a woman collapses on a train. In 1914, Englishman GH Hardy, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, seeks to comprehend the ideas of the Indian prodigy, Srinivasa Ramanujan.
A Disappearing Number not only won the 2007 Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for Best New Play but also the 2008 Olivier Award for Best New Play.
The new production will also be performed – for one night only (October 14, 2010) – at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, where the original premiered in March 2007, and be shown at selected cinemas as part of NT Live, the first time the initiative has included a production that has not originated either at the National Theatre or in London.
As well as A Disappearing Number, Complicite are also presenting a revival of last season’s hit Shun-Kin at the Barbican (November 4 to November 13) and Complicite’s Artistic Director Simon McBurney is directing Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart for English National Opera at the London Coliseum (November 20 to December 4, 2010).
Tap Dogs continues at the Novello Theatre until September 5, 2010. A Disappearing Number will be followed – from September 30 – by Onassis.