Arthur Darvill stars in the Bush Theatre's Hir
Casting news
CASTING has been announced for the UK premiere of Hir. Written by Taylor Mac (24-Decade History of Popular Music) and directed by Nadia Fall (Disgraced), it runs at the Bush Theatre from June 20 (previews from June 15) to July 22, 2017.
The line up includes Arthur Darvill as Isaac, Griffyn Gilligan as younger sibling Max, Ashley McGuire as their mom Paige and Andy Williams as her husband Arnold.
Stop behaving like a man!
We are men.
Isaac gets home from serving in the marines to find war has broken out back home. Fed up with her broken American Dream, mom Paige has stopped washing, cleaning and caring for their ailing father. Once the breadwinner, dad Arnold has suffered a stroke and toppled from the head of the household to a mere puppet in the new regime. Ally to their mother is Isaac’s sibling Max. Only last time Isaac checked, Max was Maxine.
In Central Valley, in a cheap house made of plywood and glue, notions of masculinity and femininity become weapons with which to defeat the old order. But in Taylor Mac’s sly, subversive comedy, annihilating the past doesn’t always free you from it.
Arthur Darvill is best known for his roles in the television series Doctor Who and Broadchurch. On stage, his credits include Treasure Island (National Theatre), Once (West End/ Broadway), Our Boys and Swimming With Sharks (West End), Soft Cops (Royal Shakespeare Company), Doctor Faustus (Shakespeare’s Globe), Terre Haute (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/West End/National Tour) and Stacy (Arcola Theatre).
His other screen work includes Legends of Tomorrow, Danny and The Human Zoo, The White Queen, The Paradise, Little Dorritt, He Kills Coppers and The Verdict (TV); Robin Hood, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Pelican Blood (film).
As an associate artist, Darvill composed the music for Artefacts and several other productions at the Bush Theatre; while his productions elsewhere include Fantastic Mr Fox (Nuffield Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith/Leicester Curve), I Want My Hat Back (National Theatre), Lightning Child and The Frontline (Shakespeare’s Globe), Stoopud Fucken Animals (Edinburgh Festival Fringe), Crazy Love (Paines Plough) and Is Everyone Ok? (Nabokov).
His musical Been So Long (Young Vic Theatre/English Touring Theatre), written with Che Walker, has been adapted for the screen and is currently in production.
Griffyn Gilligan, who performed in Teddy Ferrara at the Donmar Warehouse, is a founding member of the ensemble Ponyboy Curtis (The Yard/New Diorama/Camden People’s Theatre). He has worked on various workshops and developments, including BULLISH (Milk Presents/Lyric Hammersmith/Camden People’s Theatre), Antigonna (Young Vic), Weaklings (Chris Goode & Company/Warwick Arts Centre) and an upcoming project with The Royal Exchange/Chris Goode & Company.
Ashley McGuire has previously worked with director Nadia Fall on several productions including The Suicide, Our Country’s Good and Home at the National Theatre, where she has also appeared in Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and An Oak Tree. Elsewhere, her stage work includes the role of Falstaff in Henry IV (Donmar Warehouse), Shopping and F***ing (Lyric Hammersmith), Re-Charged – Fatal Light (Clean Break/Soho Theatre) and Housekeeping (Theatre Uncut).
Her screen credits include This Country, Decline and Fall, In the Club, The IT Crowd Special: The Internet is Coming, The Job Lot, Derek, Miranda and recurring roles in Man Down (Series 1-3), Dead Boss and Coronation Street (TV); David Brent: Life on the Road and Bridget Jones’ Baby (film).
Andy Williams’ work in the West End includes The 39 Steps and War Horse. More recently, he appeared in Kneehigh’s Rebecca at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth and on tour. His other theatre credits include Grand Guignol (Theatre Royal, Plymouth/Southwark Playhouse), A Christmas Carol (Royal Theatre, Northampton), Ben Hur (Watermill Theatre), Judgement Day (Almeida Theatre), Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter and The Play What I Wrote (David Pugh Productions), A Matter of Life and Death, Peer Gynt and Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre) and As I Lay Dying, Twelfth Night and The Jungle Book (Young Vic).
On television, he has appeared in Agatha Raisin: The Walkers of Dembley, Waking the Dead, Wire in the Blood, The Ghost Squad and Grown Ups.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Taylor Mac is a multi-award-winning writer and performance artist at the forefront of alternative responses to American culture. Author of seventeen full-length plays, Mac won rave reviews for the extraordinary 24 hour durational concert, A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, which reframed and re-enacted 240 years of US history (an extract was performed at LIFT Festival 2016). In Hir, Mac tears apart the kitchen sink genre by challenging gender expectations and subverting all notions of the typical American family.
Hir is designed by Ben Stones, with lighting by Eliott Griggs and sound by Elena Peña.
To book tickets, call the box office on 020 8743 5050 or visit www.bushtheatre.co.uk/.
Read more about the Bush Theatre’s 2017 season, which includes the European premiere of Guards at the Taj.