Rose Theatre Kingston Announces 2018 Christmas Show HANSEL & GRETEL

Rose Theatre Kingston today announces its 2018 Christmas show, a festive new version with original music of the Brothers' Grimm classic Hansel & Gretel written by Ciaran McConville, who returns to the theatre following last year's successful adaptation of Alice in Winterland. Rosie Jones will direct a cast of local young actors from Rose Youth Theatre led by a team of professional actors. The production opens on Friday 14 December, with previews from Thursday 6 December, and runs until Sunday 6 January 2019. For more information, visit www.rosetheatrekingston.org.

Life is good in the little town of Freiburg. Somehow it has escaped the Great Famine laying blight to its neighbours. It has the highest of walls, the most bountiful of harvests and holds the biggest of parties. And everyone loves the town's mayor.

When young Hansel and Gretel are caught passing food to the poor, they are as surprised as anyone to be rewarded with a trip to the far side of the forest. Little do they know of the gingerbread house that awaits them and the sweet old lady who controls their fate.

Battling magical beasts, enlisting a crew of fairy tale bandits and learning the secrets of their past, Hansel and Gretel must race to save their town from the Witch's Curse. And all in time for Christmas.

Ciaran McConville said today, "I'm delighted to be writing a festive new version of Hansel & Gretel for Rose Theatre Kingston and even more thrilled that the wonderful Rosie Jones will be directing it. The original fairy tale is dark and I hope we can hold onto some of that, but it also has love, hope and reconciliation at its heart and those are big Christmas themes. In the tradition of the Rose, this will be a great adventure for all ages with original songs, terrible jokes and plenty of snow."

Tickets are on sale to Rose Circle Members and Loyalty Card Holders now and will go on general sale on Thursday 29 March at 10am.

As in previous years, Rose Theatre Kingston invites young actors aged 10-19 to audition to perform in Hansel & Gretel as part of Rose Youth Theatre.

The young cast will receive training from a professional creative team to learn high level acting skills before performing in alternate shows across the run.

Auditions will take place between May and June. For further information please visit www.rosetheatrekingston.org, or email Director of Learning and Participation Ciaran McConville at CiaranM@rosetheatrekingston.org.

Ciaran McConville is Director of Learning and Participation at Rose Theatre Kingston. Writing credits for the company include Alice in Winterland, The Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol, Our Town: A Kingston Story, In the Way of Peace, Scenes from Childhood and Stay With Me. Other credits include Beast Quest (Hampton Court Palace), The Enchanted Story Trail (RHS Garden Wisley), Stones (Sutton Theatres), Snowbound (Trafalgar Studios), My Father the Angel (NT Studio), These Four Walls, Shostakovich The Last Symphony, Touched by Fire, The Man Who Dreamed (Edinburgh Festival Fringe), MiracleBoy (Bad Physics), Crooked Little House (Battersea Arts Centre), Immortal (Courtyard Theatre) and The Settling Dust (Union Theatre). Adaptations include Heart of Darkness, The Jungle Book, Treasure Island, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Trial, Arabian Nights, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Oliver Twist, Frankenstein and the hit show Horrible Histories Ruthless Romans, which toured internationally. He is also a founding director of Debut Theatre Company.

Rosie Jones returns to Rose Theatre Kingston to direct, having previously been Associate Director on The Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Other credits include The Box, Into the Minds of Muybridge (V&A Museum), My Kingdom is a Horse! (UK tour), Much Ado About Nothing (RHS Garden Wisley), In the Pursuit of Appi-ness and Christmas at Mildred's (RADA Festival).

Founded by Sir Peter Hall, and modelled on the original Elizabethan Rose Theatre on London's Bankside, Rose Theatre Kingston is the largest producing theatre in South West London.

Since opening in 2008, the Rose has collaborated with a range of directors, playwrights and producing partners to create vibrant, engaging and inspiring productions. Recent works include the first stage adaptation and world première of Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend directed by Melly Still, Zach Helm's Good Canary directed by John Malkovich, John Barton and Peter Hall's Shakespeare adaptation The Wars of the Roses directed by Trevor Nunn, David Hare's The Absence of War directed by Jeremy Herrin and Jacqueline Wilson's Hetty Feather (West End transfer and Olivier Award nominee) directed by Sally Cookson.

With over 150,000 visitors a year, the Rose enjoys artistic and critical acclaim from its own productions and co-productions as well as from hosting the work of renowned theatre companies including Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe, Headlong, English Touring Theatre, Peter Brook, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, and Sheffield Theatres. With an auditorium that lends itself to both intimate and epic scale productions, the Rose has established itself as one of the most exciting theatres in the UK.

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