Hampstead Theatre Announces Full Cast and Creative Team For THE FELLOWSHIP

Hampstead Theatre has announced the full cast and creative team for the world premiere of The Fellowship, an electrifying, hilarious and gripping new play by Roy Williams. Directed by Paulette Randall, The Fellowship will run from 17 June until 23 July 2022.

Set in modern Britain, The Fellowship cast comprises of Rosie Day (Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon, Southwark Playhouse; Microwave, National Theatre), Ethan Hazzard (Raised by Wolves, HBO; The Long Song, BBC One), Trevor Laird (Small Island and One Man, Two Guvnors, National Theatre), Suzette Llewellyn (Running with Lions, Lyric Hammersmith; EastEnders, BBC One), Cherrelle Skeete (Fun Home, Young Vic; The Phlebotomist, Hampstead Theatre), and Lucy Vandi (An Unfinished Man, The Yard; Tina - The Tina Turner Musical, Aldwych Theatre).

Director Paulette Randall, will be joined by designer, Libby Watson; lighting designer, Mark Jonathan; sound designer, Delroy Murray; casting director, Briony Barnett CDG; associate director, Grace Joseph and assistant designer, Roma Farnell.

Roy Williams, playwright of The Fellowship, said:

"The Fellowship tells the story of two sisters of West Indian heritage who have grown apart but, due to the illness of their mother, are forced back into each other's lives. It's a story about family, grief and race; about passing trauma on, about generational differences, about the endlessly difficult relationships between women and men, black and white, young and old. The sister's different relationships to their blackness, the white world and class. It's meaty and its complicated, sometimes painful and sometimes, at least I hope, joyous. I can't wait to see the production come alive at Hampstead Theatre with this wonderful team of artists."

Paulette Randall, director of The Fellowship, said:

"I am so looking forward to working with Roy Williams again and to be making my directorial debut at Hampstead Theatre with his latest play, The Fellowship. Roy has created an engaging and powerful familial tale that looks at the complexities of sisterhood and of being Black and British in contemporary London. I can't wait to get into the rehearsal room with this fantastic group of artists and get started."

"Where's the glory Mum? Where's that perfect world for us, your kids?"

Children of the Windrush generation, sisters Dawn (Lucy Vandi) and Marcia Adams (Suzette Llewellyn) grew up in 1980s London and were activists on the front line against the multiple injustices of that time. Decades on, they find they have little in common beyond family... Dawn struggles to care for their dying mother, whilst her one surviving son is drifting away from her. Meanwhile, high-flying lawyer Marcia's affair with a married politician might be about to explode and destroy her career. Can the Adams sisters navigate the turmoil that lies ahead, leave the past behind, and seize the future with the bond between them still intact?

Roy Williams OBE is one of the UK's leading dramatists. His plays include The Firm, Wildefire (Hampstead Theatre), Sucker Punch (Royal Court) and Death of England and Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads (National Theatre). In 2020, his play Death of England: Delroy reopened The National Theatre and he received both a BAFTA Nomination (Best Short Form Drama) and an RTS nomination (Best Writer, Drama) for his contribution to BBC4's Soon Gone, A Windrush Chronicle. Williams is also mentor of Hampstead Theatre's year-long writers' programme Inspire.

Associate Director of London's 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony and a former Artistic Director of Talawa Theatre Company, Dr. Paulette Randall MBE makes her Hampstead Theatre debut. Other directing credits include Doctor Faustus (Shakespeare's Globe), Gem of the Ocean (Kiln) and Fences with Lenny Henry (Duchess Theatre).

The Fellowship is a T.S. Eliot Foundation commission.

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