The Jermyn Street Theatre has announced the first full season from Artistic Director Anthony Biggs
In Septeber/October the theatre will present Steven Berkoff: Religion and Anarchy. In a five week season this legendary maverick of British theatre will co-direct his visceral one act plays with Associate Director Max Barton. Eight of his plays will be produced in rep including the premieres of Roast, Guilt, Line-Up, Gas and How To Train an Anti-semite. The season also includes his epic poem Requiem for Ground Zero, which Berkoff himself will perform once a week. Alongside the fully produced plays, there will be a series of readings of his other one-act plays and at least 20 of his works will feature in the season.
Following the Steven Berkoff season, Anthony Biggs will direct a revival of the 1974 David Pinner comedy The Potsdam Quartet. Set in the summer of 1945 as the Second World War comes to an end, Stalin, Truman, Churchill and Atlee, the ‘Big Four’, meet at Potsdam in Occupied Germany. Their mission - to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi German , which agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also include the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of the war. As the four most powerful men in the world gather to set out the new order, in an ante-room a British string quartet, guarded by a Russian soldier, wait to perform. As the musicians bicker and the quartet begins to disintegrate, next door the fate of the world is being settled. Contrasting the conflicting and paradoxical worlds of politics and art, The Potsdam Quartet tackles the themes love, friendship and endurance against the background of a disintegrated world beginning to put itself back together. A prolific writer for stage and a novelist, David Pinner is perhaps best known for his 1967 novel Ritual, which was later adapted for screen as The Wicker Man.
Continuing Jermyn Street Theatre’s mission to revive classics and develop new musical theatre work The Little Beasts (What Happens To Naughty Children) runs as the Christmas show. A farm for the fiendish, a menagerie for the mischievous and a warning to the wicked, this modern take on an 18th century cautionary tale for children, is a new musical written by Luke Bateman and Michael Conley. The colourful and joyous extravaganza features a deliciously disgusting feast of naughtiness in which children are transformed into the animals they most resemble. The show will feature puppetry, masks, magic and promises to be a Christmas treat for all the family. Luke Bateman is the resident composer at Jermyn Street Theatre. With Katy Darby he co-wrote the darkly comic All I Want For Christmas, and the MMD award-winning musicals Lord Byron’s Mistress and Bachelor Boys. He has composed music for productions including St John’s Night and On Approval.
