Kate Lock's RUSSIAN DOLLS to Play the King's Head Theatre This Spring

Winner of the 2015 Adrian Pagan award for playwriting, Kate Lock's wise and witty new drama RUSSIAN DOLLS celebrates cross-generational relationships and lays bare the extraordinary virtue of self- determination. This uncompromising duologue is a tender portrait of how humanitarian values are blind.

The play comes to King's Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, London N1 1QN, Tuesday 5th - Saturday 23rd April 2016. Press night is slated for Friday 8th April, 8.30pm.

Hilda is blind and lives alone. Camelia is a teenage offender looking for her next mark. RUSSIAN DOLLS examines the singularly fierce friendship that forms between these women as they search for shared purpose in a broken Britain. In juxtaposing their dramatically different lives, the play offers a fascinating insight into the changing roles of women, the trappings of age and the worries of youth.

Writer Kate Lock comments, I met the real Hilda at a pensioner's day centre. She was collecting windfalls to take home and make herself an apple crumble, completely blind. She lived completely independently. Her grit, humour and sense of self-worth were so inspiring, I felt compelled to write about her. RUSSIAN DOLLS is her story.

The 2015 Adrian Pagan award was open to playwrights with one professionally produced play to date, to acknowledge the need for continued support of promising dramatists beyond their first production. The judging panel (Artistic Director of the King's Head Theatre, Adam Spreadbury- Maher; Olivier-nominated writer and performer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge; playwright and dramaturg, Paul Sirett; theatre director and NT connections festival director, Audrey Sheffield; playwright, Tess Berry-Hart) selected RUSSIAN DOLLS from over 300 entries.

Adam Spreadbury-Maher says, I started the Adrian Pagan award to provide a platform for distinctive new voices at the King's Head. Kate's writing is vivid, truthful and fiercely intelligent, and in a year of very strong entries, RUSSIAN DOLLS was head and shoulders above the rest. I'm thrilled to finally show it to the world. RUSSIAN DOLLS was shortlisted for the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting before winning the Adrian Pagan award.

IF YOU GO:

RUSSIAN DOLLS

Tuesday 5th - Saturday 23rd April 2016 Tuesday to Saturday, 8.30pm
Sunday matinees, 3pm
Saturday 23rd April matinee, 4pm

Running time: 75 minutes

At King's Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, London N1 1QN

Tickets are available priced £18 (£15 concessions); Preview on Tuesday 5th April priced £10; Previews (6th and 7th April) priced £14. Available from King's Head Theatre Box Office and www.kingsheadtheatre.com or 020 7226 8561.

About Kate Lock - Kate has worked extensively as an actress, and playwright. From the age of 15, she worked in repertory theatre and for the BBC, playing leading roles all over the country whilst reading new plays which inspired her to start on her own. Alongside sketches and monologues, she wrote and directed a short film Frank's Bits. With Terry Johnson, she co-wrote and starred in Tuesday's Child for BBC 2, followed by a stage adaptation for Theatre Royal Stratford East. She has also written episodes of Casualty for the BBC and for stage, A Job For Life, winner of the writer's guild award and Sleeping Dogs. She has been commissioned to develop and write a new sitcom for BBC Radio 4 and performs regularly on the London comedy scene.

About King's Head Theatre - After a bombastic, exciting and innovative 45th year, the King's Head's rebirth as a crucible for new writing and critical rediscoveries continues, whilst also welcoming the the much- anticipated return of pub opera. The King's Head's offers an an unapologetically broad programme of work including theatre, musical theatre and opera, transfers to and from the biggest arts festivals in the world, and a trail-blazing policy of ethical employment on the fringe - if it's on here, you won't see it anywhere else.

Adrian Pagan was a stage manager for ten years before his first play, The Backroom, won the Verity Bargate award and was produced by the Bush Theatre. The award was set up following his tragic death at the age of 39. The two winners to date have been Thomas Pickles for Dead Party Animals and Kate Lock for RUSSIAN DOLLS which can be seen at the King's Head from 5th - 23rd April 2016.

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