Finborough Theatre Presents FOG

The world premiere of Fog opens at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre on Tuesday, 3 January 2012 (Press Night: Thursday, 5 January 2012 at 7.30pm) for a limited four-week season, the final play in the New Writing at the Finborough Theatre Season, playing November 2011 to January 2012.

Fog is about two families: one white and dysfunctional, the other black and aspiring. Fog and Lou were put into care as young children by their soldier father, Cannon, following the untimely death of their mother.

Ten years later, Cannon returns, expecting to reassemble his family around him. But he feels a stranger in this ‘new' England of broken promises. And nothing could prepare him for the damage that abandonment and an inadequate care system has wreaked on his kids. He desperately tries to repair what has been broken, but is it all too little too late?

Fog is the world premiere of a stunning new play, a unique collaboration between a male actor in his 20s and an established female writer/performer in her 60s, directed by multi-award-winning writer/director Ché Walker.

Playwright Tash Fairbanks was born in 1948. A writer, theatrical performer and playwright, she trained at E15 Acting School, and was a founder member of the lesbian feminist Siren Theatre Company in 1979. Her playwriting includes commissions for Theatre of Thelema, Women's Theatre Group, Graeae, Theatre Centre, Charter Theatre Company and Siren Theatre Company with such works as Mama's Gone a Hunting (1980), Curfew (1982), From the Divine (1983), Now Wash Your Hands Please (1984), Pulp (1985), Hotel Destiny (1987) and Swamp (1989) which have toured extensively in UK, Holland, Germany and USA. Film includes Nocturne (Channel 4). Her published work includes Siren Plays (Taylor and Francis) and Fearful Symmetry (Onlywomen Press). Her work as an actor includes productions for Sidewalk Theatre, Gay Sweatshop, Theatre of Thelema and Siren Theatre Company, as well as receiving a nomination from Plays and Players for Best New Actress of the Year.

Playwright Toby Wharton was born in 1984 and trained at RADA. Acting for theatre includes Days of Significance (Royal Shakespeare Company), Ajax (Riverside Studios),Transient (Pleasance Edinburgh and Shunt Vaults Theatre), Home (Tristan Bates Theatre), Six Days (Camden People's Theatre) and Shalom Baby (Theatre Royal Stratford East) as well as readings and workshops at The Royal Court Theatre, Young Vic Theatre, Soho Theatre and National Theatre Studio. Acting for film and television includes Postcode, Bashment, Silent Witness, The Bill and The Gates, a new sitcom for Sky 1. Fog is Toby's first play.

Director Ché Walker returns to the Finborough Theatre where he made his directorial debut with Achidi J's Final Hours in 2004, and where he directed two sell-out productions - Etta Jenks, starring Daniela Nardini and Clarke Peters (2005) and Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge (2011). Other Theatre includes Been So Long (Young Vic Theatre and English Touring Theatre), Extended Family (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Glory of Living (BAC), Estate Walls and Little Baby Jesus (Oval House Theatre), Lovesong (English Touring Theatre and Edinburgh Festival), Car Thieves (National Theatre Studio) and Dance for Me (Tricycle Theatre). Ché's writing includes Been So Long (Young Vic Theatre and Royal Court Theatre), The Frontline (Shakespeare's Globe), Iphigenia (Southwark Playhouse), Flesh Wound (Royal Court Theatre), Crazy Love (Paines Plough), Car Thieves (National Theatre Studio), Carmen (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park), Dance For Me (Theatre Royal Stratford East) and Rootz Spectacular (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry). He is also writing the book for The Eighth, a new musical with music and lyrics by Paul Heaton of The Beautiful South for this year's Manchester International Festival as well as writing his own musical adaptation of The Bacchae with Arthur Darvill for English Touring Theatre. This year, Ché will direct the feature film adaptation of his original musical, Been So Long from his own screenplay for Greenacre Films/UKFC and is also developing an original television series with the BBC.

The cast includes:

Kanga Tanikye-Buah
Trained at Arts Educational Schools London.
Theatre includes The Tempest (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Sonnet Walk (Shakespeare's Globe) and rehearsed readings of Fog (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith) and 364 (The Lyric Lounge).
Film includes English in Mind Level 4 and English in Mind Level 5.
Radio includes Ethood advert.

Benjamin Cawley
Theatre includes Sense (Hen and Chickens Theatre), Sticks and Stones (Old Red Lion Theatre), Dunsinane (Royal Shakespeare Company at The Hampstead Theatre), Dark Carnival (Old Vic Tunnels), Crossing The Line, Patterns of Grace (Hampstead Theatre), Who Let the Dogs Out (Soho Theatre), O.O.L.P.O.S.P, There is Nothing There (Oval House Theatre) and Other Voices (Rose Theatre, Kingston).
Television includes How TV Ruined Your Life and Flash Prank.
Radio includes Switching Lanes.

Victor Gardener
Trained at Lee Strasberg Institute, New York, and Webber Douglas.
Theatre includes Macbeth, Miss Julie, Of Mice and Men, The Caretaker, Blood Wedding, Arturo Ui, Road, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Recruiting Officer, Europeans (Mercury Theatre, Colchester), Doorman (Theatre Royal, Plymouth), The Way of the World (Wilton's Music Hall), Bollywood Jane (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Macbeth (Belfast Festival at Queen's), Blocked (Lyric Theatre, Belfast), The Taming of the Shrew (United States Tour), Enjoy (Theatre Royal Bath) and Biblical Tales (New End Theatre, Hampstead).
Television includes Law and Order UK, Casualty, The Crux, Doctors, The Bill, Emmerdale and Murphy's Law.
Film includes Fortune's Smile, Postcode, The Fourth Dimension and Doctor Surreal.

Annie Hemingway
Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Theatre includes Richard III (Royal Shakespeare Company), Baghdad Wedding (Soho Theatre), She Stoops to Conquer (Birmingham Rep), Chauntecleer and Pertelotte (Old Red Lion Theatre and Brighton Fringe Festival), Breakfast at Tiffany's (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian (Watford Palace Theatre), Love's Labour's Lost (Guildford Shakespeare Company),TS Eliot Exchange Project (Old Vic New Voices and Vineyard Theatre, New York) and The Syndicate (Chichester Festival Theatre).

Audience members on rehearsed readings of Fog
"The dialogue is exquisite. It does more than simply jump off the page, it leaps out grabs you by the throat and smacks you around. A truly original well written piece that succeeds in doing what I always want from a good play. To learn. To think. To laugh. To cry. To feel." Roy Williams OBE, playwright.
"Beautifully pared down, the rhythms of life are really there. The writers have given a voice to those who have none." Jane Boston. Senior Lecturer and Head of International Voice, Central School of Speech and Drama.
"A vivid piece of writing, funny, sharp and intriguing." David Tucker, TV director.
"A play like this helps to dash the misconceptions that children get into the care system because of something they have done wrong. A moving experience to watch as the story unfolds and one that needs to be put there for the public to see." Pam Redican, Principal of Wings School, Cumbria and Nottinghamshire. Winner of the Pride of Britain Award for her dedication to the education and care of ‘difficult' young people.

Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Box Office 0844 847 1652 Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Tuesday, 3 January - Saturday, 28 January 2012
Tuesday to Saturday Evenings at 7.30pm. Sunday Matinees at 3.00pm. Saturday matinees at 3.00pm (from the second week of the run).
Prices for Weeks One and Two (3 January - 15 January 2012) - Tickets £13, £9 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £9 all seats, and Saturday evenings £13 all seats.
Previews (3 and 4 January) £9 all seats.
£5 tickets for under 30's for performances from Tuesday to Sunday of the first week when booked online only.
£10 tickets for residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on the first Saturday of the run only.
Prices for Weeks Three and Four (17 January - 28 January 2012) - Tickets £15, £11 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £11 all seats, and Saturday evenings £15 all seats.
Performance Length: Approximately 2 hours.

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