The Park Theatre in North London has announced its new season for summer and autumn 2023, celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Highlights include new comedy It’s Headed Straight Towards Us, written by Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer and starring Rufus Hound and Samuel West; new physical theatre production Bones; new Andrew Stein play Disruption; the world premiere of The Garden of Words based on the Anime and novel by Makoto Shinkai; dark comedy Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea; and The Interview, about the interview between Princess Diana and Martin Bashir.
The season begins in its Park90 studio space with Bones (5 to 22 July 2023), a new writing, physical theatre production about rugby that tackles mental health. Ed is used to getting injured playing rugby, but he’s never faced an injury that he couldn’t see before. When his mental health makes it feel like he’s taking on an entire rugby team by himself, will his teammates stand by his side or remain seated on the side-line?
In their Park200 main venue, new play Disruption (7 July to 5 August 2023) by Andrew Stein asks what happens if we let an app make our life choices in a timely and insightful exploration of our tech obsessed world. After tremendous Silicon Valley success and a big exit, Nick presents his three best friends with his next big idea: an algorithm that is more complex than the human brain and promises to guide them through big life decisions better and more effectively than they can guide themselves. In an era where every aspect of human life has been documented with data and disrupted by technology, do computers know us better than we know ourselves? And even if they do, should we listen?
Next in Park200 is the world premiere of The Garden of Words (10 August to 9 September 2023), based on the stereotype-defying Anime and novel by Makoto Shinkai. Takao and Yukari are escaping. Whilst seeking solace in a Japanese garden, an out-of-step woman and an offbeat teenager meet by chance. Social misfits with a shared sense of loneliness, the unlikely pair bond over classical poetry, shoemaking and bad cooking. But the heartfelt companionship that could save them might also ruin them…
It’s Headed Straight Towards Us (13 September to 20 October 2023) sees actor-comedians Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer join forces in a comedy about two actors stuck in a trailer on the side of a volcano. The glacier is melting, the volcano is active. Bitter rivalries emerge between fussy ‘bit part’ actor Hugh Delavois (Samuel West) and fading Hollywood bad boy Gary Savage (Rufus Hound), going back to their time at college together, as the film they are meant to be working on collapses around them and the trailer they are in begins to slip.
In Park90, Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea (13 to 30 September 2023) by Italian theatre-maker Emanuele Aldrovandi will be a darkly comic, absurdist, and political piece about migration, where the roles are reversed. It’s the near future and Europe has failed. A domino effect of nationalist, isolationist policies has left the continent’s economies on the brink of collapse, and the very individuals who wanted to close its borders to immigrants are forced to flee across the seas. In a claustrophobic shipping container, three unnamed travellers place their lives at the mercy of a mysterious people-smuggler.
Finally, moving into the autumn season, The Interview (27 October to 25 November 2023) by Jonathan Maitland and presented by Original Theatre is about the interview between Princess Diana and Martin Bashir that shocked the world. It was watched by hundreds of millions worldwide. But now, it is said, the interview has no legitimacy. Is it right that the way it came about has overshadowed what it was meant to be? The Interview poses tough questions: What can we justify in the pursuit of truth? Can we trust our great institutions? And are we ever, really, in control of our own narrative…our legacy?
Artistic director Jez Bond said in a press statement: “As our 10th Birthday approaches I’m delighted to announce our next season; six new extraordinary pieces of theatre. From the political to the purely comic, the array of shows look back, forward and directly at the present. With a mixture of new and familiar faces gracing the stage, we’re thrilled to open our doors to all.”
Currently playing at the Park Theatre is Animal, running to 20 May 2023 – read reviews here. Coming up is a revival of Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things from 24 May to 1 July 2023, starring Amber Anderson (Peaky Blinders) and Bridgerton’s Luke Newton.
More about It’s Headed Straight Towards Us tickets at the Park Theatre
Book tickets to Animals at the Park Theatre
Book tickets to The Shape of Things at the Park Theatre
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