Suhayla El-Bushra CUCKOO to Run 14-25 Jan at the Unicorn

Unicorn Production, CUCKOO, by Suhayla El-Bushra, directed by Nathan Curry with assistant director Anne Stoffels and design by Georgia Lowe will run Tuesday 14 to Saturday 25 January 2014, with an official opening night on 15 January.

Nathan Curry directs Suhalya El-Bushra's insightful new play Cuckoo; a razor-sharp study of an unlikely friendship between Nadine and Jenny, two teenage girls from very different backgrounds, and Jenny's mother Erica. The play explores the consequences that occur when the lines of responsibility get blurred.

Cuckoo is the Unicorn's second production for adults following the success of the award-winning and critically acclaimed Monkey Bars in 2012 and is part of a new programme of work that explores what it means to be a young person today.

Erica is bored. She used to go on research trips to the Congo, now all she has is Woman's Hour, Waitrose and wearisome dinner parties. Then one morning she discovers her daughter's new and only friend sitting in the kitchen and life gets interesting. But how far will she go to protect a child that's not hers, and what will she have to sacrifice?

Suhayla El-Bushra's debut play Pigeons opened as part of the Royal Court's Open Court Season. Her previous work for stage includes the Bush Theatre's 66 Books programme of plays. Suhayla worked as a teacher and a youth worker and spent part of her childhood in Khartoum, Sudan. Her other writing credits include for television Hollyoaks and Doctors. Suhayla has developed an original screenplay Left Luggage as part of the Guiding Lights scheme where her mentor was Christopher Hampton.

Sarah Malin plays Erica and she is joined by Eden Howard as Jenny and Kate Lassman-Long as Nadine. Eden Howard and Kate Lassman-Long are both part of the Unicorn Young Company and are making their professional stage debuts.

Sarah Malin's theatre credits include Unrivalled Landscapes (Orange Tree), Say It With Flowers (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs), Blue Sky (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs) and Here Lies Mary Spindler (RSC). Television credits include What Remains (BBC), Eastenders (BBC), Doctors (BBC) and Silent Witness (BBC).

Nathan Curry directs. Nathan is the Co Artistic Director of Tangled Feet and the Associate Director of Greenwich + Docklands International Festival. For Tangled Feet his directing credits include Measurement Shop, The Cells (with Theatre Venture), Wishful (with Emergency Exit Arts) Home, IConfess, Game? Emily's Kitchen, Lost Property and Catching Dust for which he won the LOST Theatre Festival's Best Director award. Other directing credits include Ignorance / Jahiliyyah (Hampstead Downstairs), Little Platoons (Bush), As you Were (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), One Mile Away (promenade performance in Elephant and Castle) and Fixer (HighTide Festival).

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