KATE Begins Next Month at Greenwich Theatre

One of the most fascinating untold stories of the Second World War will be revealed in an award-winning new play over five nights at Greenwich Theatre in March.

KATE, by the acclaimed Lost Watch Theatre Company, tells the story of an Icelandic family after a total of 25,000 British and Canadian troops invaded the neutral country in 1940, focusing on wayward daughter Selma and young lodger Kate, who had moved to the capital, Reykjavik, from a very small town in the north of the country.

"I went to drama school with the writer Agnes Porkelsdottir Wild, who directs the play, and she was always a bit shocked that none of us knew about Iceland during the war," said actor/artistic director Rianna Dearden. "Her grandmother was a child in 1940 and it became a massive part of their culture.

"In the play Selma sleeps around with soldiers while Kate falls in love with one of them. The family runs a kiosk selling cigarettes and sweets and business is soon booming, but relationships with soldiers are frowned upon and a child fathered by a soldier is known as a 'situation child' and still is today.

"It's a typical, good old drama, which has gone a bit out of fashion, and we try and do something different with it. As a company we are very fast-paced and want things to move quickly. For example, we have a leaf-blower on stage the whole time because it's very windy in Reykjavik."

Lost Watch, formed as an all-female company in 2012, won the National Student Drama Festival award for the second year running with Kate and have since been signed up by the New Diorama Theatre in London as part of their emerging companies programme.

"We met James Haddrell from Greenwich Theatre after he saw Kate in Edinburgh last year," said Rianna, "and in November he asked if we'd like to bring it to Greenwich, which of course we did because it's a lovely theatre."

Kate was the very last of the 100 or so shows Mr Haddrell saw at Edinburgh. "It was on the morning before I got the train back to London and I'm so glad I didn't miss it," said Greenwich Theatre's Artistic and Executive Director. "Lost Watch are making quite a name for themselves and Kate is quite different to a lot of the work we put on. The company has created, written, produced and won two awards for the play.

"The performance is run through with fragments of the Icelandic language and the songs are a mixture of Icelandic folk songs and British/American war songs translated into Icelandic. The story is inventively told and I found it incredibly moving."

*KATE plays at Greenwich Theatre from Wednesday-Sunday, March 4-8 (8pm). Box office: 020 8858 7755
www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk

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