England People Very Nice - National Theatre (Olivier)
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
THE NATIONAL Theatre has announced its forthcoming programme – from February to May 2009. And for the seventh year, the Travelex £10 Tickets season returns, opening in the Olivier Theatre with England People Very Nice, which runs from February 11 (previews from February 4) before continuing in repertoire until August 9, 2009.
Richard Bean’s new play is described as a riotous journey through four waves of immigration from the 17th century to the present day, and follows a pair of star-crossed lovers amid cutters’ mobs, Papists, Jewish anarchists and radical Islamists.
Nicholas Hytner directs a cast that includes Jamie Beamish, Paul Chequer, Olivia Colman, Rudi Dharmalingam, Sacha Dhawan, Trevor Laird, Elliot Levey, Aaron Neil, Fred Ridgeway, Sophie Stanton and Howard Ward.
Olivia Colman, who will be making her National Theatre debut in England People Very Nice, has appeared on television in five series of Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look and Green Wing.
Sacha Dhawan was last seen at the National Theatre as Akthar in the original cast of The History Boys, a role he also created on film. His other theatre credits include Free Outgoing (Royal Court Theatre) and Pornography. His screen work includes Wired, Bradford Riots and Splintered.
Since he became Director of the National Theatre in April 2003, Hytner has directed Henry V, His Dark Materials, The History Boys, Stuff Happens, Henry IV, Southwark Fair, The Alchemist, The Man of Mode, The Rose Tattoo (with Stephen Pimlott), Rafta, Rafta… , Much Ado About Nothing and Major Barbara.
Bean’s plays include The English Game, In the Club, Harvest which received the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, Honeymoon Suite, Under the Whaleback, Toast and The Mentalists.
England People Very Nice is designed by Mark Thompson, with lighting by Neil Austin, music by Grant Olding and sound by John Leonard. The Director of Animation is Pete Bishop.
The second production in the Travelex £10 Tickets season is Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman which opens in the Olivier on April 8, 2009.
Other productions include Burnt by the Sun, Time and the Conways and Berlin, a reading by David Hare (all in the Lyttelton); and Dido, Queen of Carthage (in the Cottesloe).