National Theatre's THIS HOUSE to Transfer to the West End, Sept 2013

The National Theatre's THIS HOUSE will be transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in the West End this September for a 16-week season. Stars Julian Wadham, Phil Daniels and Reece Dinsale will move with the production.

Read the original report here.

THIS HOUSE originally played in the Cottesloe Theatre through December 1, 2012. The play received Olivier Award nominations for both Best New Play and Best Director.

The Cottesloe production was directed by Jeremy Herrin, and featured designer Rae Smith, lighting designer Paul Anderson, music Stephen Warbeck, choreographer Scott Ambler, sound designer Ian Dickinson, original lighting designer Paule Constable and associate director Joe Murphy.

James Graham's THIS HOUSE is set in the British Parliament during the turbulent years from 1974-1979, a shabby time of industrial unrest, spiraling inflation, and the feeling that Britain was a failing nation. In 1974 when Edward Heath called a general election, the winning Labour party under Harold Wilson lacked a majority. They had to struggle on in power just to keep the Conservatives out, let alone actually pass legislation.

Playwright Graham finds the action not in the prime ministers themselves--Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, and finally Thatcher--but in the party whips who struggle, manipulate, and connive to control the outcome of each vote. Graham builds suspense from the compromised mixture of ambition and idealism that informs the politics of any era.