Sarah Ball, Michael Feast and More Announced for Lyric Hammersmith's SEVENTEEN

The Lyric Hammersmith today announces full casting for Seventeen. Sarah Ball will be playing Lizzy, Michael Feast will be playing Mike, Mike Grady will be playing Ronny, Diana Hardcastle will be playing Jess, Margot Leicester will be playing Emilia and Richard Cordery will be playing Tom.

Matthew Whittet's poignantly funny play Seventeen, under the direction of Anne-Louise Sarks, makes its European premiere in the Lyric's new UK production after premiering to sell out audiences and critical acclaim at Belvoir, Sydney in 2015.

The play is set in the time after the end of the last day of school, but just before everyone moves on. It's about the cusp of adulthood, the cusp of complete change.

Jess (Diana Hardcastle) is Mike's (Michael Feast) girlfriend. Tom (Richard Cordery) is Mike's best friend, but he's secretly in love with Jess. Emilia (Margot Leicester) is Jess's best friend and she's about to get drunk for the first time. Lizzy (Sarah Ball) is Mike's annoying younger sister. And Ronny (Mike Grady), well no- one invited Ronny and no one's quite sure why he's there. As dawn approaches, through a fog of cheap beer, dreams are shared, insecurities aired and secrets spilled.

Funny, wise and a little bit sad, Seventeen, a play about teenagers performed by a cast of veteran stage actors, will turn our notions of adulthood and adolescence on their head.

Sarah Ball Lizzy
For the Lyric: After Mrs Rochester. Other theatre credits include: Sheppey (Orange Tree); Superior Donuts (Southwark Playhouse); The Revenger's Tragedy (Hoxton Hall); The Real Thing (West Yorkshire Playhouse/ETT); The Riots (Tricycle); Jane Eyre (Shared Experience/Trafalgar Studios); Death of a Salesman (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Antony and Cleopatra, Much Ado about Nothing, King Lear, The Tempest
(RSC) and Eve and Eva (Soho). Film and television credits include: Moving On, Guilt, Father Brown, Lucky Man, Spotless, Doctors, Skins, Da Vinci's Demons, Holby City, The Riots: In their Own Words, Outnumbered, Marchlands, Breaking the Mould, Murphy's Law and A Touch of Frost.

Richard Cordery Tom
For the Lyric: Spring Awakening (also Novello). Other theatre credits include: Waiting For Godot (Sheffield Crucible); Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Farewell To Theatre, Importance Of Being Earnest (Rose Theatre Kingston); Waste (The Almeida), Love Story (The Duchess); The Power Of Yes (National Theatre); Waste (Almeida); Richard II, Henry IV Part II (RSC/Roundhouse); Richard III, Henry VI Parts I, II & III (RSC/US Tour/

Roundhouse); Twelfth Night, Comedy Of Errors, Hamlet (RSC/Novello); Macbeth (RSC/Noel Coward); Merry Wives Of Windsor, Coriolanus (RSC/US Tour/The Old Vic); The Front Page (Chichester Festival
Theatre); Volpone (RSC/Barbican) and Romeo And Juliet (RSC/World Tour). Film and television credits includes: Midsomer Murders, Garrow's Law, Harley & The Davidsons, Marcella, Dickensian, Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, Breaking The Bank, Madame Bovary, About Time, Les Miserables, Mum's List, Dragonheart

(2017) and The Wife (2017)

Michael Feast Mike
For the Lyric: Saved, The Servant. Other theatre credits include: Murder in the Cathedral, Measure for Measure, Faust (RSC); Ross, A Month in the Country, Twelfth Night, The Master and Margarita, The Seagull, A Christmas Carol, Vivat! Vivat Regina!, Doctor Faustus, Nathan the Wise (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Duchess Theatre); Macbeth (Gielgud/Lyceum, Broadway); The Caretaker (Gate, Dublin); Ghost From a Perfect Place (Arcola); Facts (Finborough); Three Sisters (Young Vic); The King's Speech (Wyndham's); The Forest, The Tempest, Watch It Come Down (National Theatre); No Man's Land (National Theatre/Wyndham's). Film and television credits include: Game of Thrones, State of Play, The Steven Lawrence Case, Fantastic Fear of Everything, The Deaths of Ian Stone, Penelope, Long Time Dead, Young Blades, Sleepy Hollow, Prometheus and Velvet Goldmine.

Mike Grady Ronny
Theatre credits include: Taken At Midnight (Theatre Royal Haymarket/Chichester Festival Theatre); Black Comedy (Chichester Festival Theatre); Henry VI (Shakespeare's Globe); Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham's); Measure For Measure (Complicite?/National Theatre); His Girl Friday (National Theatre); Flamingos (Bush Theatre); Hamlet (Stratford East) and Aladdin (Everyman Cheltenham). Film and television credits include: Last of the Summer Wine, The Dumping Ground, Holby City, Skins, Citizen Smith, Doctors, An Ungentlemanly Act, Up The Garden Path, Sweet Sixteen, Not With A Bang, Colin's Sandwich, Chish 'N' Fips, Sherlock Holmes 2, The Return Of The Pink Panther, Bert Rigby You're A Fool, The Prisoner Of Zenda, Britannia Hospital, The Pirates Of Penzance and Carry On Loving.

Diana Hardcastle Jess
For the Lyric: The London Cuckolds. Other theatre credits include: The Argument (Hampstead); A Delicate Balance, Camera Obscura (Almeida); Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Ion, New England, A Patriot for Me (RSC); An English Tragedy, Me and Mamie O'Rourke, The Glass Menagerie (Watford Palace); The Vortex, The Duchess of Malfi, A Woman of No Importance (Royal Exchange); Tejas Verdes, A Kind of Alaska, A Slight Ache (Gate); Simpatico (Royal Court); In Remembrance of Things Past, Mutabilitie, School for Scandal and Secret Rapture (National Theatre). Film and television credits include: The Kennedys, After Camelot, Utopia, Doctors, Holby City, Silent Witness, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Rosemary and Thyme, Midsomer Murders, Fortunes of War, Love Song, Reilly Aces of Spies, The Boy, Jenny's Wedding, A Good Woman, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Margot Leicester Emilia
Theatre credits include: Charles III (Almeida/Wyndham's/Music Box theatre, NY); The Knot of Heart (Almeida); Broken Glass - Best Actress, Olivier Award Winner (National Theatre); The Winter's Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, Long Day's Journey Into Night, An Inspector Calls, The Glass Menagerie, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - Best Actress Manchester Theatre Awards Nominee, The Enemies Within (Bolton Octagon);

The Sacred Flame (ETT); Measure For Measure, The Crucible, Macbeth (Young Vic); A Conversation (Royal Exchange Manchester); Colder Than Here, Projection (Soho); The Lucky One (Hampstead); Anthony & Cleopatra, Taming of the Shrew (Theatre Royal Haymarket) and Frame 312 (Donmar Warehouse). Film and television credits include: New Tricks, Frankie, First Thing, The Bill, Margot, Night of the Lotus, 1408, Going Going, The Take, Doctors, Law & Order, Heartbeat, Five Days, Messiah, The Blue Borsalino, Full Time and Midsomer Murders.

Matthew Whittet Writer
Matthew is a playwright and actor. He graduated from NIDA's acting course and was a 2013/2014 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow. Writing credits include: Cinderella, Old Man (Belvoir); Girl Asleep, Fugitive, School Dance, Big Bad Wolf (Windmill Theatre) Harbinger (Brink Productions) and Silver (B Sharp) - Winner 2010 Philip Parsons Young Playwright's Award and Girl Asleep (2015 Adelaide Film Festival). Theatre credits include: Silver (B Sharp); Cinderella, Conversation Piece, The Book of Everything, The Threepenny Opera, The Underpants, King Ubu, As You Like It (Belvoir); The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Metamorphosis, Endgame, Fireface (Sydney Theatre Company); Hamlet, King Lear (Bell Shakespeare); Moving Target, The Ham Funeral (Malthouse) and The Department (State Theatre Company of South Australia). Film and television credits include: The Great Gatsby, Sleeping Beauty, Australia and Moulin Rouge!

Anne-Louise Sarks Director
Anne-Louise works professionally as an actor, director and dramaturg. She is Resident Director at Belvoir. From 2010 to 2013 she was Artistic Director of The Hayloft Project and was previously a director-in-residence at Malthouse Theatre. Belvoir credits include: A Christmas Carol, Nora (Co-Adaptor/Director); Medea - Winner Sydney Theatre Award Best Direction, Best Mainstage Production and Best New Australian Work, Winner AWGIE Best Stage Play, Nominated - 2013 Helpmann Awards Best Direction, Best New Australian Work, Best Play and UK transfer Gate Theatre (Co-Adaptor/Director); Elektra/Orestes, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person (Director); The Wild Duck (Assistant Director) and Oedipus Schmoedipus and Thyestes (Dramaturg). Other directing credits include: The Seed (Melbourne Theatre Company); The Nest, Yuri Wells, By Their Own Hands (The Hayloft Project). Acting credits include: The Suicide, By Their Own Hands (B Sharp/The Hayloft Project); 3XSisters, The Only Child - Winner - Sydney Theatre Awards Best Independent Production (The Hayloft Project); Return to Earth (Melbourne Theatre Company); The Spook (Malthouse Theatre); and Starchaser (Arena Theatre Company).

Written by Matthew Whittet
Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks Designed by Tom Scutt
Lighting Design by Paule Constable Sound Design by Nick Manning Movement Direction by Imogen Knight

Photo Credit: Dan Hipkin

View the trailer below:

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