Celebrating the 150th birthday of novelist and playwright John Galsworthy, the first professional UK production in 85 years of Windows by John Galsworthy opens at the Finborough Theatre for a three-week limited season on Tuesday, 22 August 2017 (Press Nights: Thursday, 24 August and Friday, 25 August 2017 at 7.30pm).
"It's 'ardly worth while to do these winders. You clean'em, and they're dirty again in no time. It's like life. And people talk o' progress. What a sooperstition!"
1922. In the aftermath of the First World War, Britain is left questioning the relevance of the ideals and values for which it fought, but which society seems to have forgotten. When writer Geoffrey March proposes to his family that they employ a young woman with a questionable past as their new maid, his high-minded ideals are suddenly challenged by those around him. Finding support for his beliefs in the girl's father, a philosophical window cleaner, he follows the path which he believes to be decent and moral. But when his son begins to fall in love with her, the family discover that ideals can have serious consequences...
Described by John Galsworthy as "a comedy for idealists and others," Windows is a fascinating exploration of class and of a generation struggling to catch up with their lives in a world that has been altered forever by war.
John Galsworthy was born 150 years ago in 1867. A winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is today best known for The Forsyte Saga, but was also a leading dramatist of social reform in such plays as Loyalties, which was revived at the Finborough Theatre in 2006, The Silver Box, Strife, The Skin Game, The Mob and Justice - which led the Home Secretary Winston Churchill to institute a major prison reform. Alongside George Bernard Shaw and Henry Granville Barker, he was one of the pioneers of the new theatre movement at the start of the twentieth century. In 1924, he founded PEN, the international writers organisation. He died in 1933.
DETAILS:
The first professional UK production in 85 years
WINDOWS
by John Galsworthy
Featuring: Janet Amsden, Carolyn Backhouse, Charlotte Brimble, Vincent Brimble, Jacob Coleman, Duncan Moore, David Shelley, Eleanor Sutton and Christopher White
Directed by Geoffrey Beevers
Designed by Alex Marker
Lighting by Robbie Butler
Costume Design by Georgia de Grey
Presented by Project One Theatre Company in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre
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