National Theatre’s A Taste of Honey to transfer to Trafalgar Studios

Shelagh Delaney's play A Taste of Honey is set for a West End run as the National Theatre's production directed by Bijan Sheibani will embark on a UK tour including an engagement at Trafalgar Studios.

Delaney wrote the play when she was just 19, set in Salford in the 1950s where a young working-class girl Jo lives in a flat with her mother Helen. Both women embark on new relationships, Helen with her rich, younger lover, and Jo with a back sailor. The play was intended to be written as a novel, but Delaney hoped the story would revitalise British theatre by addressing social issues, and it opened in London in 1958.

As part of a UK tour, A Taste of Honey will play Trafalgar Studios from 5^th December 2019 to 29^th February 2020. Tickets for the production, which is the first time the play has been seen in 60 years, go on sale on 11^th October.

The National Theatre's production premiered in the Lyttelton Theatre in 2014 starring Lesley Sharp and Kate O'Flynn. The UK tour of the production has just opened in Salford at The Lowry, and stars Jodie Prenger and Gemma Dobson as Helen and Jo.

In a review for The Stage, Francesca Peschier labelled the play a "sharp slice-of-life drama" which feels "remarkably fresh", while in 2014, Mark Shenton for LondonTheatre.co.uk said "the play speaks for itself with a gritty, gruelling intensity".

The full cast of the production includes Durone Stokes, Stuart Thompson, Tom Varey, with understudies Liam Bessell, Katy Clayton and Claire Eden.

Designed by Hildegard Bechtler, the piece features original compositions by Benjamin Kwasi Burrell, with lighting by Paul Anderson, movement by Aline David, sound design by Ian Dickinson and company voice work by Joel Trill.

A Taste of Honey will run at Trafalgar Studios from 5^th December.

A Taste of Honey tickets go on sale on 11^th October.

_{Photo credit Marc Brenner}