The Walworth Farce Tickets

Reviews are coming in for Nicky Allpress' revival of The Walworth Farce at Southwark Playhouse Elephant in London. Southwark Playhouse Elephant is a brand new theatre venue in Elephant & Castle in South London that opened in January 2023, and is sister venue to Southwark Playhouse Borough. Directed by Nicky Allpress and written by Enda Walsh, The Walworth Farce stars actor and comedian Dan Skinner, best known for his character ‘Angelos Epithemiou’ (Shooting Stars and various TV comedy shows); Emmet Byrne who’s theatre credits include The Long Christmas Dinner (Abbey Theatre), NW Trilogy (Kiln Theatre), Blood Wedding (Wiltshire Creative) and Cell Mates (Hampstead Theatre); Killian Coyle whose theatre credits include All That We Found Here (The New Theatre, Dublin), The Boys, Young Skings (Reality Check Productions); and, Rachelle Diedericks, whose theatre credits include The Crucible, Our Generation (National Theatre), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace Theatre), The Band (Theatre Royal Haymarket, UK Tour) and Cymbeline (LIPA). Set in a council flat on the Walworth Road in South London, The Walworth Farce is about fifty-year-old Dinny, exiled from his native city Cork, who lives with his two sons Blake (twenty-five) and Sean (twenty-four). Every day they perform a bizarre ritual which sees The Walworth Farce fracture into a play-within-a-play which depicts, in garbled form, their last day in Ireland. The play explores the psychological impact of exile and dependency on a mythologised version of the past – themes that recur frequently in Walsh's work. The play was first performed in Galway, Cork and Dublin in 2006 it was revived at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 2007 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Fringe First award. The play received its London premiere at the National Theatre in September 2008. The Walworth Farce is playing at the Southwark Playhouse Elephant until 18 March 2023. Check out reviews including The Guardian and The Times. More reviews to follow. Book tickets to The Walworth Farce

London gets a brand new theatre this week, with the opening of Southwark Playhouse Elephant in Elephant & Castle in South London. The new venue is a short distance from Southwark Playhouse's current theatre, which has recently been rebranded Southwark Playhouse Borough. The new 310 seater theatre in Elephant & Castle opens this Thursday, 26 January 2023, with a community theatre production called Bermondsey Revolution (until 28 January). Then on 17 February, a revival of Enda Walsh's The Walworth Farce opens at the new theatre, starring Dan Skinner, Emmet Byrne, Killian Coyle and Rachelle Diedericks. The theatre has been a long time coming, with the idea first conceived in 2006, and planned to open in 2021 - before the full effects of Covid hit. Artistic director of Southwark Playhouse Chris Smyrnios told the BBC recently that: "It's a great feeling to come to the end of the journey and to be at the beginning of a new one. Because of the regeneration, we've always been renting places and never really had a place of our own. Finally, we're in a building which is where we can set our roots, it'll be our forever home and it'll be a great place to be able to serve the community but also put on world-class theatre by new and emerging theatre practitioners." Coming soon to Southwark Playhouse Borough is Smoke by Kim Davies from 1 February; Windfall by Scooter Pietsch from 9 February; and Brilliant Jerks by Joseph Charlton from 1 March. Book tickets to The Walworth Farce at Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Southwark Playhouse has revealed full casting for the The Walworth Farce which opens its new purpose built venue in Elephant & Castle.. Nicky Allpress's revival of Enda Walsh’s award winning The Walworth Farce will feature actor and comedian Dan Skinner, best known for his character ‘Angelos Epithemiou’ (Shooting Stars and various TV comedy shows); Emmet Byrne who’s theatre credits include The Long Christmas Dinner (Abbey Theatre), NW Trilogy (Kiln Theatre), Blood Wedding (Wiltshire Creative) and Cell Mates (Hampstead Theatre); Killian Coyle whose theatre credits include All That We Found Here (The New Theatre, Dublin), The Boys, Young Skings (Reality Check Productions); and, Rachelle Diedericks, whose theatre credits include The Crucible, Our Generation (National Theatre), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace Theatre), The Band (Theatre Royal Haymarket, UK Tour) and Cymbeline (LIPA). The Walworth Farce is a remarkable play about what can happen when people become stuck in the stories they tell about their lives. Visceral and tender, the play combines hilarious moments with shocking realism. Set in a council flat on the Walworth Road in South London, fifty-year-old Dinny, exiled from his native city Cork, lives here with his two sons Blake (twenty-five) and Sean (twenty-four). Every day they perform a bizarre ritual which sees The Walworth Farce fracture into a play-within-a-play which depicts, in garbled form, their last day in Ireland. The play explores the psychological impact of exile and dependency on a mythologised version of the past – themes that recur frequently in Walsh's work. The piece was first performed in Galway, Cork and Dublin in 2006 it was revived at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 2007 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Fringe First award. The play received its London premiere at the National Theatre in September 2008. The Walworth Farce runs from 17 February 2023 until 18 March 2023 at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London SE1

THE WALWORTH FARCE Cottesloe Much as I admired the speed and technical proficiency of the acting in Druid theatre company's production of Enda Walsh's black comedy, I just couldn't warm to the relentlessly manic pace which rarely let up for over two hours. But what fails to tickle one person's funny bone works a treat on another's - the lady seated in front of me clearly relished every frenetic moment of this violent farce with its shades of Orton and Synge, remarking to her companion at half time that surely it couldn't be the interval already. Set in the shabby, high-rise Elephant and Castle flat of Irish immigrant Dinny and his two sons, it takes us through the fictionalised scenario which he compels them to enact every day, reliving (with fanciful embellishments) the circumstances which forced him to flee his native Ireland and hide himself away imprisoned behind their locked front door. Sean (Tadhg Murphy), his head partially shaved to mimic the receding hairline of one of the characters he's made to play, has at least managed to make some contact with the outside world - making a daily trip to Tesco to purchase the never-changing shopping involved in their daily ritual. But this particular morning things don't go according to plan when he mistakenly picks up the wrong plastic bag and returns without a chicken. Denis Conway is superb as Dinny, controlling, apoplectic and secretly running scared from an awful truth, whilst Garrett Lombard's damaged Blake (dressed up in women's clothes and a succession of wigs) is equally disturbed and potentially dangerous, his naturally deep voice coming as a shock after the fluting high-pitched tones he adopts to play his own mother. But it is left to Mercy Ojelade's well intentioned Hayley (walking unsuspectingly into the distorted ceremony of their everyday lives and forced to participate in their grotesque game playing) to bring the only note of normality and a brief slowing of pace to this brutal, very Irish play which Mikel Murfi directs with an assured hand. Louise Kingsley. Courtesy of This Is London. Tickets to The Walworth Farce.