Shaun Dooley (Broadchurch, Cuffs, Misfits) and Emily Bruni (Peep Show, Life in Squares) are to star in a major West End season of Steven Berkoff one-act plays, Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses, directed by Nigel Harman, at Trafalgar Studios for five weeks from Thursday 6 October - Saturday 5 November.
Lunch (1983) and its sequel The Bow of Ulysses (2002) are two of Berkoff's finest small pieces, examining the relationship between a couple when they first meet and have, what appears to be, an abortive one-night-stand; and how they are years later after two decades of marriage.
The creative team includes Olivier Award-nominated Sound Designers Ben &
Max Ringham, designer
Lee Newby (Grand Hotel, Dogfight), lighting designer
Joshua Carr (Hangmen, West End) and Offie Award Best Choreographer
Alistair David as movement director
.
Producer JIMMY JEWELL said: "Berkoff's plays are always physically demanding for the actors involved. In Lunch and The Bow of Ulyses, intentional vulgarity sits
Cheek by Jowl with passages of poetic clarity, allowing the characters to reveal the most painful and ugly aspects of their lives. Lunch is a black comedy of errors that is as universal as it is bizarrely peculiar. It is a psychological and sexual struggle for power. Berkoff's writing is astounding in its unrelenting physicality. Yet it skips from Shakespearian verbosity, allusion and surprising imagery to tiptoeing indecision. The Bow Of Ulysses avoids any hint at conversation, with each character speaking in long soliloquies, before passing the baton to the other. The man feels he has wasted years married to the woman, she believes he'd have been nothing without her support. The truth, as truth always is, is more complicated and the sides switch around and explore one another, without ever touching in conversation. This is a rare opportunity to see two of Berkoff's finest small pieces."
Shaun Dooley was Ricky Gillespie in Broadchurch, DC Carl Hawkins in Cuffs, Greg in Misfts, Dick Alderman in the Red Riding trilogy, and Peter Harper in Jimmy McGovern's The Street. Shaun won the Royal Television Society NorthWest Award for Best Actor for Mark of Cain in 2007 and Best Actor for Kandahar Break at the Newport Film Festival 2009. In 2014 he won Best Supporting Actor for Frankenstein at the BBC Audio Drama Awards.
Emily Bruni can currently be seen as Simone in The Collection, the major new series launched this week on Amazon Prime. She was Gail in three series of Peep Show on C4, Vita Sackville West in the acclaimed BBC TV series Life in Squares, about the revolutionary Bloomsbury group, and Catherine the Great in the BBC TV film about her life. On film she was Caitlyn in Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe.
As director
Nigel Harman is currently under the umbrella of The
Michael Grandage Company. He is working on bringing a musical over from Broadway with ATG, and also creating a new theatre piece with
Neal Street Productions. Previous credits include Shrek The Musical (UK tour). Nigel is also widely known as an actor having won an Olivier and several Television Awards. Theatre work includes, I Can't Sing, A Chorus of Disapproval, Shrek The Musical, Guys And Dolls,Three Days Of Rain, The Caretaker, Privates On Parade. Television includes: Downton Abbey, Mount Pleasant, Miss Marple, Eastenders, Larkrise To Candleford, Hotel Babylon, The Outsiders, Plus One. Films: Blood Diamond, Telstar.
For further details, see Trafalgar Studios' website.
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