Tim Firth's THIS IS MY FAMILY Will Make Its London Premiere in May
The show will begin on 28 May, with previews from 23 May, and runs until 12 July.
By: Stephi Wild Mar. 06, 2025
Anthology Theatre has announced the London premiere of Tim Firth's Award-winning musical This Is My Family. Directed by Vicky Featherstone, the brand-new production opens at Southwark Playhouse Elephant on 28 May, with previews from 23 May, and runs until 12 July.
This Is My Family was originally staged at Sheffield Theatres in 2013, winning the UK Theatre Award for Best Musical.
Tim Firth said today, “Having a London premiere in a place like this directed by Vicky feels like a competition win for me. The Elephant is a theatre designed for adventure and intimacy - perfect for a musical intended to show that you don't have to travel abroad to go on safari, that wild animals are closer than we might think and that the best holidays are the ones on which we've laughed the most.”
Anthology Theatre's Lil Lambley added, “Anthology Theatre is absolutely delighted to bring this first-class musical and Olivier Award winning team to the intimate setting of Southwark Playhouse Elephant. At a time when the world feels increasingly uncertain, there's no better moment to share a heartfelt and uplifting story that celebrates love, forgiveness, and, above all, the joy of shared laughter with your family.”
Cast and full creative team will be announced shortly.
'Describe your family and win a dream holiday'. That was the competition pinging up on Nicky's phone. So she describes the family she dreams of having, but not the one she's got. The one she fears is falling apart. And then... she wins the holiday. Instead of choosing Rome or Orlando or anywhere else on earth, Nicky takes her family camping. Back to the place her parents went once, when they were her age, a thousand years ago. The place where they first met.
This is My Family, the hilarious and uplifting story of the disastrous family holiday that eventually brings the family together, won the UK Theatre Award for Best Musical in 2013 and is brought to London for the first time by Olivier award winners Tim Firth (Our House) and Vicky Featherstone (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour).
Tim Firth's other theatre credits include Now Is Good (Chester Storyhouse, UK Theatre Nomination Best New Musical), Neville's Island (Nottingham Playhouse and West End, Evening Standard & Olivier nomination, MEN Award), The Safari Party (Stephen Joseph, Scarborough and Hampstead), the musical Our House (West End, Olivier Award Best Musical), The Flint Street Nativity (Liverpool Playhouse) and Sign Of The Times (West End). His play Calendar Girls (Chichester Festival Theatre, West End) broke all British records for a professional and amateur play, was nominated for an Olivier and won the WhatsOnStage Best Comedy Award. Calendar Girls The Musical, co-written with Gary Barlow, opened at Leeds Opera house and transferred to The Phoenix Theatre, winning a WhatsOnStage Award and an Olivier Award nomination, and his musical The Band (Manchester Opera House, West End) won the MEN Best Musical Award. Firth recently collaborated with Gary Barlow on the show A Different Stage (West End). Work for television includes the Playhouse drama Timeless, Money For Nothing (Writer's Guild Award), Once Upon A Time In The North, Cruise Of The Gods, The Flint Street Nativity, Preston Front (Writer's Guild Award, British Comedy Award, RTS Award, BAFTA nomination), His children's comedy series The Rottentrolls won a BAFTA, and was recently voted by Radio Times one of the top fifty children's shows of all time. His film credits include Blackball, Calendar Girls, Kinky Boots , The Wedding Video and Greatest Days.
Vicky Featherstone directs. She was Artistic Director of Paines Plough 1997-2005; the inaugural Artistic Director of The National Theatre of Scotland 2005-2012, and Artistic Director of the Royal Court (2013–2023). For the Royal Court her work includes Jews. In Their Own Words [co-director], The Glow, Maryland, Living Newspaper, Shoe Lady, On Bear Ridge (and National Theatre Wales) [co-director], Cyprus Avenue (and Abbey, Dublin/MAC, Belfast/Public, NYC), The Cane, Gundog, My Mum's a Twat, Bad Roads, Victory Condition, X, How to Hold Your Breath, God Bless the Child, Maidan: Voices from the Uprising, The Mistress Contract, The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas, Untitled Matriarch Play, and The President Has Come to See You (Open Court Weekly Rep). For National Theatre of Scotland, her work includes Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour (and National Theatre/West End/international tour), Enquirer [co-director], An Appointment with the Wicker Man, 27, The Wheel, Somersaults, Wall of Death: A Way of Life [co-director], The Miracle Man, Empty, Long Gone Lonesome; Cockroach (and Traverse), 365 (and Edinburgh International Festival), Mary Stuart (and Citizens/Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh), The Wolves in the Walls [co-director] (and Tramway/Lyric, Hammersmith/UK tour/New Victory, NYC). For Paines Plough her work includes The Small Things, Pyrenees, On Blindness, The Drowned World, Tiny Dynamite, Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco, Splendour, Riddance, The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union, and Crave. Other theatre includes What if Women Ruled the World? (Manchester International Festival). For television, her work includes Pritilata (from Snatches: Moments from 100 Years of Women's Lives), Where the Heart Is, and Silent Witness.
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