Fuel Announces More Work For 2018 - BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES, TOUCHING THE VOID, and More

Fuel Director, Kate McGrath confirmed more projects to take place in 2018 in the UK and beyond.

Barber Shop Chronicles, Inua Ellams' acclaimed play (co-produced by Fuel, the National Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse) about the melting pot world of the male barber shop, has completed two sell-out seasons at the National Theatre and a hugely successful tour of Australia and New Zealand. Seen now by more than 62,000 people it has been attracting new and diverse audiences wherever it plays. This autumn it will embark on a tour of the USA and Canada, including a five week season at ART in Boston.

Bristol Old Vic Artistic Director Tom Morris will direct David Greig's brand new adaptation of Joe Simpson's huge international best-seller Touching the Void. It tells the terrifying story of Joe and Simon Yates' successful but disastrous and nearly fatal climb of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. It was made into an award-winning film in 2003 and here is adapted for the stage for the first time. David Greig worked with psychologists and physiologists to try and understand better the mental and physical effects of surviving in such extreme conditions. Touching the Void is a co-production between Fuel, Bristol Old Vic, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Royal & Derngate Northampton.

The Dark is a new play by poet Nick Makoha. It tells the harrowing auto-biographical story of how he and his mother escaped from Idi Amin's Uganda in 1978. Two performers play multiple characters in this exploration of memory which will be directed by the award-winning Roy Alexander-Weise (Nine Night, National Theatre).

As part of 14-18 NOW, the UK's arts programme for the First World War centenary, Charlie Ward tells the story of how hospitalised First World War soldiers were played Charlie Chaplin films in an effort to cheer them up as they recovered from their wounds. Sound&Fury is acclaimed for plunging audiences into highly immersive worlds, and this production is no exception as the sounds of war and the sounds of home merge to create a visceral and emotional soundscape that asks the question: Is laughter really the best medicine?

Andy Smith's new play Summit mixes up timeframes and language to explore how a global crisis can turn the world on its head and how people attempt to cope. The production will go on a UK tour including a two-week run at Shoreditch Town Hall.

Tonight We Fly, a festival of performances and conversations, will take place in Leeds in autumn 2018. Full details of the programme will be announced in due course, but it will include workshops, discussions and performances including: Summit and Charlie Ward. Partners include West Yorkshire Playhouse, SlungLow, Transform, and Leeds International Film Festival.

Fuel has formed a three-year partnership with the Wellcome Trust which involves artists and scientists collaborating and sharing their experience and expertise. For this season David Greig will be working with academics Professor Mike Tipton - whose research examines the physiological and psychological impact of adverse environments on the human body - and Dr Magda Osman - who explores the psychology of decision-making in every changing situations. In this collaboration the scientists are helping David to gain a deeper understanding of his characters.

Fuel produces an adventurous, playful and significant programme of work - live, digital, and across art forms - for a large and representative audience across the UK and beyond. They collaborate with outstanding artists with fresh perspectives and approaches who seek to explore our place in the world, expose our fears, understand our hopes for the future, create experiences which change us and in turn empower us to make change in the world around us. Led by Kate McGrath, Fuel is supported by Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, and Wellcome Trust through Sustaining Excellence.

Built in 1766, Bristol Old Vic is the oldest continuously Working Theatre in the English speaking world, and remains a place of joy, discovery and adventure to this day. A multi-million-pound two-phase redevelopment project first provided state of the art rehearsal rooms, a dramatically extended forestage and precision engineered sightlines, giving audiences an even more intimate theatrical experience. The second phase is nearly finished: a new fully-accessible front of house will boast a bar and kitchen, open sun-up to curtain-down, alongside a new interactive heritage offering and a brand new Studio Theatre. The theatre's mission is to create pioneering twenty-first Century Theatre in partnership with the people of their energetic city; inspired by the history and magical design of the most beautiful playhouse in the country. They are publicly funded by Arts Council England and Bristol City Council, using that investment to support experiment and innovation, to allow access to their programme for people who would not otherwise encounter it or be able to afford it and to keep their extraordinary heritage alive and animated.

The Royal Lyceum Theatre Company is a crucible of Scottish talent, developing Scotland's considerable indigenous artists and presenting the best of international drama from its home in a magnificent, intimate Victorian building in Edinburgh's West End. Internationally celebrated playwright David Greig became the 8th Artistic Director of the Lyceum in 2016. As part of his premiere 2016/17 season, the company produced ten full productions, making in one of the biggest producing companies in the United Kingdom. The 2017/18 season also comprised of 1o productions including World and Scottish Premieres. In recent years, The Lyceum has staged co-productions with Told by an Idiot, Edinburgh International Festival, Actors Touring Company, Theatre Royal, Bath; The Bush Theatre, London; Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company, National Theatre of Scotland, Citizens Theatre, Dundee Rep, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Chichester Festival Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith. In addition, The Lyceum also runs an award-winning, ambitious and acclaimed Creative Learning programme which engages over 16,000 young people across Scotland annually

Royal & Derngate, Northampton, is the main venue for arts and entertainment in Northamptonshire, with audience members and participants last year numbering more than 474,000 in Northampton and beyond. As one of the major producing venues in the country. Royal & Derngate was named Regional Theatre of the year by the inaugural Stage 100 Awards in 2011, an accolade for which it was nominated again in 2016. The theatre also won the award for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre in the UK Theatre Awards 2015 for its Made in Northampton work. Recent highlights of its Made in Northampton touring productions include nationwide tours of The Jungle Book, Agatha Christie's Love from Stranger and Death of a Salesman, a major revival of Peter Whelan's The Herbal Bed (winner of the 2016 UK Theatre Award for Best Touring Production), a major tour of King Lear, starring Michael Pennington and Soul, a new play by Roy Williams about Marvin Gaye.

Ovalhouse has been known for its support for artists professional and young people for over 50 years, commissioning new work that responds to today's social and political issues, and work that reflects the cultural diversity of its local community. With a theatre programme in two spaces they commission, co-produce and programme innovative work by early career and established artists, while their participation department provides a full range of programmes from inclusion projects to youth leadership training to supporting young artists. They invest in exploration and development, providing a space where artists can develop their creative practice, audiences can encounter new work and see the beginnings of new talent, and young people can use the arts to look at their lives, and develop their creativity and skills.

14-18 NOW is a programme of extraordinary arts experiences connecting people with the First World War, as part of the UK's official centenary commemorations. It commissions new work by leading contemporary artists across all art forms; the programme has included over 200 artists from 35 countries, taking place in 160 locations across the UK. Over 30 million people have experienced a project so far, including 7.5 m illion children and young people. 16.7 million people took part in LIGHTS OUT in 2014, and 63% of the population were aware of Jeremy Deller's, 'We're here because we're here'. The UK tour of the poppy sculptures by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper has been seen by over 3.75 million people to date. 14-18 NOW has won many awards for its work, including the National Lottery Heritage Award, 2017. 2018 is the final season, marking 100 years since the end of the First World War. 14-18 NOW is supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, by the DCMS with additional funding from The Backstage Trust, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Clore Duffield Foundation, NatWest and support from individuals.

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