Thu 12 Sep 02

NATIONAL ANNOUNCE NEW PRODUCTIONS

The National Theatre has announced new productions...

in the Olivier
Anything Goes
music and lyrics by Cole Porter, original book by PG Wodehouse & Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse, new book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman
(opens 18 Dec 02, following previews from 11 Dec 02), closes 8 Feb 03
Directed by Trevor Nunn, designed by John Gunter, lighting by David Hersey, costumes by Anthony Powell, with choreography by Stephen Mear.
Among the passengers heading for England on the luxury liner S.S. American are Reno Sweeney, a sometime celebrity evangelist turned nightclub entertainer and Lord Oakleigh, a wealthy English aristocrat, accompanied by his debutante fiancée, Hope Harcourt, her protective mother and Wall Street millionaire, Eli Whitney. Less legally on board are the stowaway Billy Crocker, desperately pursuing Hope, and Moonface Martin, Public Enemy Number Thirteen, desperately seeking the kind of notoriety enjoyed by Snake Eyes Johnson, who the F.B.I. believe to be making the trip in disguise.

Songs includes I' Get A Kick Out of You', 'You're the Top', 'It's De-Lovely', 'Blow Gabriel Blow', 'You'd Be So Easy to Love', 'All Through the Night' a'Anything Goes'. (This version of Anything Goes was originally produced at Lincoln Center Theater, New York City in 1987.)

The Frogs
music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Burt Shevelove (1974 AD), freely adapted from the comedy by Aristophanes (405 BC)
(7 to 15 Nov 02).
A concert version of THE FROGS
First staged by Yale Repertory Theatre in the university's swimming pool in 1974, Sondheim and Shevelove's take on Aristophanes has the god Dionysus persuading Shaw and Shakespeare to take part in a literary contest. The winner will earn his passage back across the river Styx, with its resident chorus of Frogs.

in the Lyttelton
She Stoops to Conquer
by Oliver Goldsmith
a co-production with Out of Joint
(opens 17 Dec 02, following previews from 30 Nov 02), closes 4 Jan 03
Directed by Max Stafford-Clark, designed by Julian McGowan, with lighting by Johanna Town.
Starring Stephen Beresford, Nigel Cooke, Monica Dolan, Fritha Goodey, Bella Merlin, Ian Redford, Owen Sharpe, Matthew Sim, Christopher Staines, Jason Watkins , Jane Wood.
Written in 1773 this is a celebrated story of class, courtship and dysfunctional families. Charles Marlow, tongue tied and uptight, needs a lesson in the art of love. He longs for a wife, but finds it easier to have a bit on the side. The barmaid seems fair game - but there's more to her than meets the eye.

A Laughing Matter
by April De Angelis
a co-production with Out of Joint
(opens 17 Dec 02, following previews from 7 Dec 02), closes 4 Jan 03
Directed by Max Stafford-Clark, designed by Julian McGowan, with lighting by Johanna Town.
Starring Stephen Beresford, Nigel Cooke, Monica Dolan, Fritha Goodey, Bella Merlin, Ian Redford, Owen Sharpe, Matthew Sim, Christopher Staines, Jason Watkins , Jane Wood.
Goes behind the scenes of Oliver Goldsmith's era. It's 1773 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The crowd is getting restless. The leading man's unconscious. But the show must go on. Do you give them what they want? Or what they need? This irreverent version of real life events tells the story of David Garrick, Dr Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith and a risky new play called 'She Stoops to Conquer'…..

in the Cottesloe
Mappa Mundi
by Shelagh Stephenson
Directed by Bill Alexander , designed by Ruari Murchison, lighting by Paul Pyant
Starring Ian Holm, Lia Williams , James Hayes, Alibe Parsons, Patrick Robinson, Tim McInnerny
(opens 24 Oct 02, following previews from 18 Oct 02), closes 29 Nov 02.
Jack (Ian Holm) has a dark secret and only a few months to live. When his family gather for his daughter Anna's wedding, Jack, a passionate map collector, is forced to confront the map of his own life and finds its horizons to be limited. Research into his ancestry proves him to be related to an eighteenth-century cartographer and plantation owner, but Anna (Lia Williams), engaged to a black lawyer, is more interested to discover that they may also be descended from a slave...
This intimate play explores the notion of Englishness, and follows the moving journey of a man coming to terms with the parameters of his life.

The Talking Cure
by Christopher Hampton
(opens 12 Dec 02, following previews from 6 Dec 02), closes 18 Jan 03
Directed by Howard Davies , designed by Tim Hatley, with lighting by Peter Mumford.
Starring Ralph Fiennes, James Hazeldine , Jodhi May.
THE TALKING CURE deals with the early years of Jung and his decision to experiment, using Freud's controversial new method of psycho-analysis, with a young Russian patient, Sabine Spielrein. The success of the experiment and the blossoming of his relationship with Sabine inaugurates, haunts and ultimately poisons Jung's friendship with Freud; and the ideas and conflicts which engulf the three of them embody, as Jung comes to realise, the destructive forces which are to overwhelm the disastrous century ahead.

in the Loft
Dinner
by Moira Buffini
( opens 18 Nov 02, following previews from 14 Nov 02), closes 14 Dec 02
Directed by Fiona Buffini and designed by Rachel Blues
Starring Harriet Walter, Penny Downie, Nicholas Farrell
An artist, a scientist and a sexpot are coming to dinner. Paige , hostess extraordinaire, is celebrating the publication of her husband's best-seller about the psychological apocalypse. The arrival of Mike, marooned in the foggy lane having crashed his van, provides an unexpected addition to the evening's entertainment. A silent waiter, sourced from an obscure website, completes the picture. Primordial Soup is first on the menu - let the dinner from hell begin…

**Public Booking by Fax and post opens on Mon 16 Sep 02

**Public Booking by telephone and through agencies opens on Mon 7 Oct 02

Click Here for performance schedule

Latest Platforms & Events announced at the National....

Susan Stroman
26 Sep 02 / 6pm Olivier(£3.50)
Choreographer and director Susan Stroman, whose many credits include the choreography for the National’s 'Oklahoma!' and directing the smash-hit Broadway musical 'The Producers', has created 'Contact'. As the production arrives in the West End, she talks about the show.

Alan Ayckbourn
22 Oct 02 / 6pm Olivier(£3.50)
Talks about his anecdote-filled book, 'The Crafty Art of Playmaking', in which he divulges the secrets of his success and shares his tricks of the trade.

Coast of Utopia - Designer: William Dudley
25 Oct 02 / 6pm Olivier(£3.50)
'The Coast of Utopia' marks William Dudley’s 50th production for the National Theatre. He talks about hi-tech design and the challenges presented by a trilogy of plays that span decades and many locations.

Mappa Mundi : Shelagh Stephenson
28 Oct 02 / 6pm Cottesloe(£3.50)
Stephenson talks about her new play as it opens in the Cottesloe

The Country Doctor
A new play by Simon Day, based on the short story by Ivan Turgenev
29, 31 Oct & 1 Nov, 6.00pm, Olivier
Director Katie Read
Cast Richard Hollis, Jennifer Scott Malden and Janet Spencer-Turner
The young Turgenev catches a cold whilst out shooting and seeks refuge in a tavern. He is visited by a talkative and intense local doctor who seems anxious to get something off his chest... It’s a hard life, trying to cure people. Sometimes you’re fumbling in the dark. Sometimes you end up prescribing, and even administering the most dangerous drug of all… love. Written in the late 1840s, this story is one of many from Turgenev’s The Sportsman’s Notebook.

John Mortimer
8 Nov 02 / 6pm Cottesloe(£3.50)
Playwright, novelist and former practising barrister, Sir John Mortimer, returns to talk about the latest instalment of his most famous creation, Rumpole and the Primrose Path.

Streetcar Named Desire: Christopher Bigsby
15 Nov 02 / 6pm Lyttelton(£3.50)
Christopher Bigsby, Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia provides an exploration of Tennessee Williams’ life and A Streetcar Named Desire.

The Talking Cure : An Introduction to Jung
13 Dec 02 / 6pm Cottesloe(£3.50)
Maggie Hyde, author of the best-selling Introducing Jung, offers some of the basics for understanding Jung.

The Talking Cure : Christopher Hampton
16 Dec 02 / 6pm Cottesloe(£3.50)
The playwright talks about his new play.

The Talking Cure : An Introduction to Freud
18 Dec 02 / 6pm Cottesloe(£3.50)
An opportunity to gain some insight into the life and theories of Sigmund Freud.

Theatre Quiz
20 Dec 02 / 6pm Olivier(£3.50)
Emma Freud returns to chair the twentieth edition of the eternally unpredictable Theatre Quiz - an annual battle of theatrical imagination and knowledge. Two National Theatre companies take on each other to prove supremacy on the South Bank...

Play Readings

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS - PLAYREADINGS
Tickets 5·00

Accompanying "A Streetcar Named Desire" in the Lyttelton are readings of six plays by Tennessee Williams; four short curtain-raisers in the Loft and two full-length British premieres in the Cottesloe.

Spring Storm is a classic deep South tale of adolescent rites of passage and prefigures the beguiling romanticism of such work as "The Glass Menagerie", whilst the mining disaster play, "Candles in the Sun", melds his customary poetry with the angry polemic of "Not About Nightingales".

The Lady of Larkspur Lotion
21 Oct 02 6.15pm, Loft

Hello From Bertha
22 Oct 02
6.15pm, Loft

Talk To Me Like The Rain
24 Oct 02
6.15pm, Loft

This Property Is Condemned
25 Oct 02
6.15pm, Loft

Candles in the Sun
15 Nov 02
2.00pm, Cottesloe

Spring Storm
22 Nov 02
2.00pm, Cottesloe

Children's Events
PINOCCHIO
presented by Indefinite Articles
21, 22, 24, 25 October at 12.00pm and 3.00pm and 26 October at 11.30am
Loft Theatre · £5.00 · 55 minutes approx. · Suitable for 5 years +
Using puppetry, shadows, illusion, live music and the objects found in a carpenter’s workshop, solo puppeteer and performer Steve Tiplady ingeniously tells the tale of the puppet that wants to be a real boy and the puppet-maker who wants to be a real father. Pinocchio is carved on stage, the fox is created from brushes and a giant shark is produced by the shadow of two saws.

SNOW WHITE
presented by Tall Stories
26 November – 10 December at 1.30pm and 5.30pm;
11 – 14 December at 11.00am and 1.30pm (Closed Sundays)
Olivier Stalls Foyer · £5.00 · 60 minutes approx.
Suitable for 6 years + · Special performances for school groups
In a world where snowflakes fall like feathers, mirrors answer back and dwarfs are a-plenty, Snow White is stranded in the forest. Will she escape the poisoned apple and live happily ever after…?

ROBIN HOOD
presented by The Caird Company
In a musical version by Jack Holloway and Steve Byrne
18 – 23 December, 27 – 31 December and 2 - 4 January at 1.30pm and 5.30pm;
26 December and 1 January at 5.30pm only. (Closed Sundays)
Loft Theatre · £5.00 · 70 minutes approx. · Suitable for 6 years +
Nottingham Fair, Christmas Eve, 1266. Take your seat and be swept up in the excitement of a medieval pageant. Laugh with the minstrels, thrill to the tales of the strolling players, marvel at the tightrope walkers as they swordfight on high, watch Robin and his outlaws battle against wicked Prince John and mind your head when it comes to the great archery contest!

Full details of all Royal National productions