New Artistic Director Bec Martin Launches First Season At New Diorama Theatre

Having taken up the post of Artistic Director and CEO in January 2024, Bec Martin’s first season at New Diorama Theatre is a battle cry, a new beginning and a statement of intent.  

The season looks at systems of power through many lenses – the care system, the home office, the education system, our whole political structure. With proven creators returning to studio work and emerging artists levelling up, this is a season that asks ‘what if things were different? Out there… and in here?’

Opening this incredible season is Between the Lines (3rd May – 1st June) co-produced with The Big House – the highly renowned charity who are transforming the lives of care leavers and at-risk young people through the power of performance. Directed by The Big House’s Artistic Director Maggie Norris and co-written by Grime MC Jammz (Poet in da Corner) and James Meteyard (Electrolyte, Redemption) this powerful play with music, examines freedom of expression, the strength of community and the foundations of one of Britain's most celebrated subcultures of rebel music. 

A finalist for the 2024 Women’s Playwriting Prize, King Troll (The Fawn) (4th October - 2nd November) is an exciting collaboration between Sonali Bhattacharyya and Milli Bhatia, the award-winning writer/director duo behind works such as Chasing Hares.  In a co-production with Kali Theatre, this dystopian tale about the corrosive impact of state racism and the effect of the UK government’s Hostile Environment policy follows the monster within two migrant sisters. How do we dismantle the master’s house?  

The Glorious French Revolution (or: why sometimes it takes a guillotine to get anything done) takes centre stage from 14 Nov – 14 Dec. Award-winning YESYESNONO (we were promised honey!, Five Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist)  are making their biggest show yet - the story of the French Revolution. Written & directed by Sam Ward, it’s a show about an angry, hungry peasant girl looking for some bread. It’s a show about rage and violence and taking to the streets. It’s a show with music and dance and other things as well. (It’s not Les Mis).  It’s about cutting powerful people’s heads off with a guillotine. It’s about what really happens when you try and change the world. It's about an insurrection in the past and what they've done to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. (It’s really not Les Mis). 

Critically-acclaimed performance duo emma + pj (Ghosts of the Near Future) lead this year’s primary schools touring project with The Shivers, a high-stakes thriller for young audiences about spies, lies, and learning to trust your gut. The ambitions of this show demonstrate New Diorama Theatre’s willingness to take its younger audiences as seriously as any of those in their main house. What’s normal to us is uncanny to them - how do you know what information to trust? Developed through workshops with local children and teachers, The Shivers tours London primary schools and community centres in June, alongside two special matinee performances at New Diorama Theatre on Saturday 22nd June 2024.  

The Edinburgh Untapped Awards will be announced next week - stay tuned for exciting details.  The award supports exceptional companies bringing work to the Edinburgh Fringe, platforming brilliant new talent with winners having gone onto win countless awards, tours, transfers and international opportunities.  The three shows will interrogate what the public knows and assumes about the world, where their focus is and where it should be. These three shows test the limits of documentary theatre making. They imagine the joyful possibilities in a meeting of minds, they interrogate the matryoshka doll of narratives, they are a psychedelic assault. The Untapped Award is presented in partnership with Underbelly and Concord Theatricals.
 

Artistic Director of New Diorama Theatre Bec Martin comments, This season is about power, what it means to take it, who holds our narratives, how to wrestle them back. Showing tenderness where there hasn’t been any, showing teeth where it’s deserved. In thinking about the theatre landscape there’s something I keep coming back to, it’s the idea of levels. A levelling. At first glance, the season looks like it falls into 3 categories: the main house, the schools show and the Untapped award. We want to dismantle those categories. All the work is of a level: early career artists taken as seriously as industry veterans, schools audiences matter as much as the grown-ups, the fringe is as vital as the centre. New Diorama has historically been a theatre that aimed to level up artists on the fringes, I want to take that energy to new, bigger places. Now it’s not just about levelling up, it’s about levelling the structures above. 

Playwright of King Troll (The Fawn) Sonali Bhattacharyya comments, "I’m so excited that King Troll (The Fawn), will be part of Bec Martin’s first season at New Diorama Theatre. Her enthusiasm for and commitment to this play - which is, to my knowledge, the first horror comedy about the UK border regime - points to a bold artist-led future for NDT, building on the incredible legacy of this venue."

YESYESNONO lead artist Sam Ward comments, "We're honoured to be part of Bec's new season at NDT. This project means a lot to us, and we're thrilled that it's happening at this venue, who are willing to take chances on big, exciting ideas."

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