Kneehigh Artistic Director and Founder Mike Shepherd announces an exceptional season of revivals and world premieres for 2017. In keeping with the company’s indefatigable spirit, the season will be a heady and eclectic mix of vibrant and subversive visions, asking vital questions about who we are and how we live today.
One of the defining novels of the 20th Century, Gunter Grass’ dazzling tour de force, The Tin Drum will be brought to thrilling theatrical life in a touring co-production with Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and West Yorkshire Playhouse. Directed by Mike Shepherd, written by Kneehigh Artistic Associate Carl Grose with music by Charles Hazlewood, The Tin Drum is a folktale for troubled times: a dark, burlesque comic extravaganza, which is at once daringly provocative, political and profound.
Kneehigh’s season also includes the return of one of company’s greatest successes Tristan and Yseult, the quintessential tale of forbidden desires which will embark on a Celtic tour, travelling to Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and Ireland via Shakespeare’s Globe. Following its sold-runs last year at Bristol Old Vic and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Daniel Jamieson’s sublime The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk will return to Bristol in August before playing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with future London dates planned in 2018. Both plays are directed by Emma Rice.
Artistic Director Mike Shepherd said ‘We’re thrilled to be taking our Tristan and Yseult, a 21st century take on the oldest of Celtic love stories, on a tour of Celtic Nations as well as to the Globe for Emma Rice’s Summer of Love season. Her wonderful production of The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk will play in Edinburgh before it tours internationally in 2018. Last, but certainly not least, I have reassembled the creative team behind Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) to make a new version of Gunter Grass’ extraordinary novel The Tin Drum. Our iconic anti-hero, Oskar, will lead us through a world as delicate as moth’s wings and as incandescent as a blazing saw mill. A grand musical satire, it promises to be furious, funny and fiercely full of hope – a story very much for now.’
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