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Southwark Playhouse announces a new, free online streaming service

SOUTHWARK Playhouse has announced #SouthwarkStayhouse, a new, free online streaming service that will share shows and exclusive video content until its doors are able to open again.

All shows are free, so you can watch them whenever you want.

The service launches with Wasted, a new rock musical about the Brontë siblings from 2018. It’s directed by Adam Lenson with music by Christopher Ash and book and lyrics by Carl Miller.

There will also be the riotously fun take on Twelfth Night from 2019. Set at a music festival, it is directed by Anna Girvan and was part of Southwark Playhouse’s Shakespeare for Schools programme.

And from the vaults (literally), there’s Bound by Jesse Briton, which premiered in the old Vault space at London Bridge and earned Briton an Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright nomination.

Alongside these three full-length shows, Southwark Playhouse will release more content fortnightly plus projects such as Philip Ridley’s The Beast Will Rise monologues – from the world premiere of The Beast of Blue Yonder which was due to open at the beginning of April.

Wasted – a new British musical which received its world premiere in The Large and ran during September and October 2018.

Through the lens of a rock documentary, Wasted gives an access-all-areas account of the struggles, heartbreaks and triumphs of the three Brontë sisters Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and their brother Branwell. Brought up in a remote, poverty-stricken town in Yorkshire, without money or opportunity, they fought ill-health, unrequited love and family feuds to write some of the most celebrated literature including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Never afraid to rebel against expectations, the lives behind the pages expose a struggling, squabbling, ferociously driven, drug-fuelled crash and burn trajectory from obscurity to celebrity and ultimately to their untimely deaths.

Coupled with a rock score from Christopher Ash (Showstoppers – Olivier Award winner for Best Entertainment), book and lyrics by Carl Miller (Emil and the Detectives, National Theatre) and directed by Adam Lenson (The Rink, Superhero), the Brontës ask – was it all wasted? This is the Brontës as you’ve never seen them before.

The cast includes Siobhan Athwal, Natasha Barnes, Matthew Jacobs Morgan and Molly Lynch.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, directed by Anna Girvan.

Twelfth Night ran in The Little in January 2019 and was part of the annual Shakespeare for Schools initiative, the most ambitious element of the Youth and Community Programme, reaching over 1500 young people every year in Southwark and Lambeth.

The project aims to enable more young people to engage with Shakespeare and have the opportunity to see live theatre that is exciting, innovative and contemporary, when they might not otherwise have the chance to do so.

Whilst searching for her lost twin brother in Illyria, Viola stumbles upon something entirely unexpected – love. But in Illyria, love’s true course is never going to run smoothly.

No one is quite what they claim to be in this strange place – male/female, lover/fighter, happy/sad, fool/priest – which leads to all sorts of complications.

Shakespeare’s classic comedy of love and identity is given a rollicking makeover with a festival vibe and live music on stage.

Directed by RSC Creative Fellow Anna Girvan (Associate Director, Leopoldstadt and People Places and Things) and designed by Anna Reid (The Cardinal, Dear Brutus) this production is suitable for everyone aged 10 and above.

The cast includes Becky Barry, Aruhan Galieva, Sapphire Joy, Caroline Parker, Liv Spencer and Luke Wilson.

Bound – Written and directed by Jesse Briton.

Bound ran in the old Vault space underneath London Bridge in 2011. It follows the fortunes of six trawlermen from Devon as they embark on one final voyage. Compelled by the threat of bankruptcy, fishing trawler ‘The Violet’ is forced out into treacherous weather. Competing against the overpowering force of nature, the tribulations of life with the opposite sex and each other’s egos, will they lose more than a way of life?

The cast includes Thomas Bennett, James Crocker, Joe Darke, Alan Devally, Daniel Foxsmith and John McKeever.

Online link: southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/streaming/.

Images: Top – Molly Lynch, Siobhan Athwal, Matthew Jacobs Morgan and Natasha Barnes in Wasted. Bottom – production shot from Twelfth Night.