Finborough Theatre Announces New ReDiscovered Season

London's Finborough Theatre has announced its new ReDiscovery Season, featuring one of the biggest West End hits of the 1930s; a forgotten female playwright; one of the most controversial dramas of its day, banned by the censor; a family tragedy in rural Ireland; and one of the biggest comic smash hits of the 1980s.

Artistic Director Neil McPherson says:

“Our artistic policy at the Finborough Theatre is to present vibrant new writing and truly unique rediscoveries. I so strongly believe that there are enough great plays out there that deserve to be seen that I have always made the promise that we will never present any play which has been on anywhere else in London in the last 25 years, so that if you choose to come to the Finborough Theatre, you can be sure that the play you see will always be new – even when it’s old.

The harsh financial realities of Off West End theatre since our reopening has meant that recently we have concentrated on new writing – including David Ireland’s Not Now, chosen by The Observer as one of the ‘Top 10 Productions of the Year’; Sophie Swithinbank’s Bacon which won her a prestigious Film 4/Peggy Ramsay Playwriting Bursary to be our Playwright-in-Residence and which is shortly to go on national tour including a run at Riverside Studios; and Neda Nezhdana’s Pussycat in Memory of Darkness which has been seen in the United States, Germany, and was the first production from overseas to perform in Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
 
Now, to readdress the balance, our new season, ReDiscovered, playing from July-October 2023, is entirely devoted to truly unique rediscoveries. It features playwrights from Aotearoa/New Zealand, England, Ireland and Scotland, with work from the 1900s, 1910s, 1930s and 1980s, ranging from the starkly relevant to cracking good stories that we think deserve to be seen again.
 
ReDiscovered includes one of the biggest West End hits of the 1930s; a forgotten female playwright; one of the most controversial dramas of its day, banned by the censor; a family tragedy in rural Ireland; and one of the biggest comic smash hits of the 1980s. And as only doing rediscoveries would be boring, the season culminates with the world premiere of a specially commissioned brand new play set in 2023 bringing the whole season right up to today…

And we’re not just a building. #FinboroughFrontier, our exciting new complement to our live theatre work, continues to embrace all the possibilities of digital creativity. It is online and completely free-to-view, with new releases coming regularly.
 
ReDiscovered opens with one of the biggest hits of the 1930s – The Wind and the Rain by Merton Hodge – playing 11 July–5 August 2023. Following the triumphs and disappointments of a group of young Edinburgh medical students, it ran for over a thousand performances in London, transferred to Broadway, toured internationally, was translated into nine languages, televised multiple times and remained a staple of British repertory theatre for decades.

The season continues with Makeshifts and Realities – a triple bill of one-act plays unseen in London for almost 100 years – playing 8 August–2 September 2023, featuring Makeshifts and Realities by forgotten female playwright, Gertrude Robins, and Honour Thy Father by H. M. Harwood. All three plays – ranging from moving and humorous, to hard-hitting and controversial – follow women striving to build independent lives in the early twentieth century, and the compromises, hypocrisies and sexual double-standards they face.
 
Our next rediscovery is Birthright by T. C. Murray, ‘the voice of rural Ireland’, running 5 September–30 September 2023. A classic 1910 Irish tragedy exploring the simmering tensions of a family torn between tradition and ambition, it was a hit at The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in the West End and on Broadway, and now returns to London for the first time in over 90 years.
 
The season culminates with a double bill that takes us from the 1980s all the way up to 2023 with John McKay’s Dead Dad Dog; together with his specially commissioned brand new sequel, Sunny Boy, running 3 October–28 October 2023, prior to a run at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh. The 1988 comic smash hit Dead Dad Dog sees young Alexander Dundee dogged by the spectre of his long dead father, a flare-trousered 1970s picture of Caledonian cheesiness. Sunny Boy brings the story crashing into 2023 in a blur of music, fast talk, unexpected nakedness, and poorly judged fashion choices.

And online, #FinboroughFrontier, our free complement to our live theatre work, continues to embrace all the possibilities of digital creativity. Highlights include our interactive An Earl’s Court Walking Tour, and our continuing #VoicesFromUkraine #Українськіголоси #Ukrayinsʹkiholosy series with performances, readings, poetry, interviews and discussions on the ongoing war in Ukraine. All releases are free-to-view on the Finborough Theatre YouTube channel, and available with subtitles on Scenesaver. More releases will continue to be announced throughout the year including Remember Your Lovers, a celebration and rediscovery of the poetry of Sidney Keyes (1922-1943), one of Britain’s outstanding poets of the Second World War.
 
To ensure we stay as accessible as possible to everyone, we continue to keep our ticket prices the same, including £10 tickets for under 30s for the first week of every production when booked online, and Tuesday evenings at concession price for everyone. As one of the most intimate venues in London, we also continue to offer Covid Safe Sunday matinees to ensure that we are accessible as possible to those who are vulnerable.
 
I look forward to welcoming you back to the Finborough Theatre.”

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