Cast and Creative Team Revealed For UK and Ireland Tour of Brian Friel's FAITH HEALER

Following the success of Abigail's Party, now running until 7 October, London Classic Theatre has announced the full cast and creative team for a new tour of Brian Friel's masterpiece Faith Healer. Michael Cabot, founder, and Artistic Director of London Classic Theatre directs Paul Carroll (Frank), Gina Costigan (Grace) and Jonathan Ashley (Teddy). Designs by Bek Palmer and lighting design by Matthew Green.

Faith Healer premièred at Longacre Theatre, New York in 1979, before opening in London at Royal Court Theatre in 1981. London Classic Theatre's tour opens at New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme on 5 September before touring to a further nineteen venues across the UK and Ireland, concluding at Connaught Theatre, Worthing on 17 November.

Artistic Director of London Classic Theatre, Michael Cabot said today: “I've wanted to direct Faith Healer for many years.  It's such a wonderful, complex piece of writing, with beautifully realised characters and Brian Friel's remarkable use of language. It draws you in, surprises, intrigues and, ultimately, takes your breath away.  I'm working on the show with my long-term collaborator, set and costume designer Bek Palmer, and I'm very excited about her vision for the play.  We're taking the play on tour for eleven weeks, to 20 venues around the UK and Ireland, opening in-the-round at the wonderful New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme.  We have assembled a cast of three extraordinary actors, Paul Carroll, Gina Costigan and Jonathan Ashley, with whom I'm delighted to be working.  Faith Healer is one of the great plays of the twentieth century, arguably Friel's masterpiece and I can't wait for us to bring it to life in 2023.”

A frayed banner hangs outside a desolate village hall.  The sick, the suffering and the desperate arrive from out of the wind and the rain.  They come in search of restoration, a cure.  

Through the 1950s and 1960s, Hardy and his wife, Grace, travel to remote corners of Scotland, Wales and Ireland.  Accompanied by manager Teddy, they move from village to village, bringing an unpredictable mix of theatricality and the spiritual. 

Using four enthralling monologues to interweave the stories of these three intriguing characters, Friel takes us on an extraordinary journey of shifting perspectives and uncertain memories.

Paul Carroll plays Frank. His theatre credits include Strike! (Southwark Playhouse), The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Rapture Theatre, Traverse Theatre, tour), Twelfth Night (East London Shakespeare Festival), Victorian Ladies in Bed (Calder Theatre), A Skull in Connemara (Nottingham Playhouse), The Non-Stop Connolly Show, Continuity (Finborough Theatre), Permanence, That Dar Place (Old Red Lion), An Incomplete History of Faces (Tristan Bates Theatre), and Way Back (Pleasance Theatre). His solo sketch show 40 Shades of Strawberry Blond played at Soho Theatre, Leicester Square Theatre and Brighton Festival. Film credits include Chosen and Pretty Music for Very Ugly People.

Gina Costigan plays Grace. Her theatre credits include On McQuillan's Hill (Finborough Theatre), The Valley of the Squinting Windows (Mullingar Arts Centre), An Triail le Mairéad Ní Ghráda (Irish tour) and The Risen People (Gaiety Theatre, Dublin). US theatre credits include Hangmen (Golden Theater), The Ferryman (Bernard B. Jacobs Theater), Party Face (New York City Center), Suitcase Under the Bed (Mint Theater Company), Crackskull Row (Irish Repertory Theater), and The Seedbed (New Jersey Repertory Company). Her television credits include Kin, Atlanta, Harry Wild, Halston, I Know This Much is True, Vikings, The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel, Fair City; and for film, Twig, My Sailor, My Love, Suspicious Minds, The Ferry, Brittany Runs a Marathon, Gender Bender, Halal Daddy, The Clowning, Becoming Jane, Veronica Guerin.

Jonathan Ashley plays Teddy. His previous credits with London Classic Theatre include The Birthday Party, Waiting for Godot, Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Double Inconstancy. Other theatre credits include The Tempest, Hansel and Gretel (Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds), Abigail's Party, Arsenic and Old Lace, Dick Barton and the Secret of the Pharoah's Tomb, One for the Pot, Ladies in Retirement, Hay Fever, Salad Days (Southwold Sunner Theatre), Mansfield Park (Redgrave Theatre, Farnham), Arms and the Man (Cambridge Theatre Company), The Secret of Theodore Brown (Unicorn Theatre), Scaramouche (Brighton Festival), The Hooligan Clown (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre), The Snow Queen (Pomegranate, Chesterfield), Stiffs (Hen and Chickens), King Lear (Courtyard Theatre), Scapin's Tricks, The Winter's Tale (Wimbledon Studio Theatre), Waiting for Godot, The Dumb Waiter (Albany Empire), and Landscape (Finborough Theatre). His television credits include Dead Man's Cardy, Tyne Bride, Divine Magic, Digital Gothic, Petite, The Score, Divine Magic, Flying Colours, The Unbecoming and Infinity Minus Infinity.

Michael Cabot directs and is the founder and Artistic Director of London Classic Theatre. He has directed all forty-five LCT productions since their touring debut in 2000, including Abigail's Party, Boeing Boeing, Same Time, Next Year, Absurd Person Singular, No Man's Land, My Mother Said I Never Should, Private Lives, Hysteria, The Birthday Party, Waiting for Godot, Absent Friends and Equus.  His recent freelance work as director includes three collaborations with award-winning playwright Henry Naylor, The Collector (Arcola Theatre/UK tour), Angel and Borders (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Adelaide Fringe & Brits Off Broadway).

Tour Dates

New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme

5 – 9 September

Box office: 01782 717 962 / www.newvictheatre.org.uk

The Mix, Theatr Clwyd

12 – 16 September

Box office: 01352 344 101 / https://www.theatrclwyd.com/

Malvern Theatres

19 – 23 September

Box office: 01684 892277 / www.malvern-theatres.co.uk

The Theatre Chipping Norton

26 – 27 September

Box office: 01608 642350 / https://www.chippingnortontheatre.com/

Lighthouse, Poole

28 – 30 September

Box office: 01202 280000 / https://www.lighthousepoole.co.uk/

Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds

3 – 7 October

Box office: 01284 769505 / www.theatreroyal.org

Hawk's Well Theatre, Sligo

10 October

Box office: 071 916 1518 / https://www.hawkswell.com/

Millennium Forum, Derry

11 – 12 October

Box office: (0044) 28 71264455 /  https://www.millenniumforum.co.uk/

Theatre at the Mill, Newtownabbey

13 October

Box office: 0300 123 7788 / https://theatreatthemill.com/

Ramor Theatre, Virginia

14 October

Box office: 049 8547074 / https://ramortheatre.com/

Middlesbrough Theatre,

18 October

Box office: 01642 815181 / https://www.middlesbroughtheatre.co.uk/

Alnwick Playhouse

19 October

Box office: 01665 660550 / https://alnwickplayhouse.co.uk/

Brunton Theat, Musselburgh

20-21 October

Box office: / https://thebrunton.online.red61.co.uk/

Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton

24 October

Box office: 01902 321 321 / https://www.wlv.ac.uk/arena-theatre/

Stamford Arts Centre

25 – 26 October

Box office: 01780 763 203 / https://www.stamfordartscentre.com/

Litchfield Garrick Theatre

27 -28 October

Box office: 01543 412121 /  https://www.lichfieldgarrick.com/

Cambridge Arts Theatre

31 October – 4 November

Box office: 01223 503333 / www.cambridgeartstheatre.com

Eastbourne Theatres

7 – 11 November

Box office: 01323 412000 / https://www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk/

Theatre Royal Winchester

14 – 16 November

Box office: 01962 840 440 /  www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk

Connaught Theatre, Worthing

17 November

Box office:  01903 206206 / https://wtm.uk/

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