THE SWEET SCIENCE OF BRUISING Transfers To Wilton's Music Hall

Troupe today announces the transfer of the Off West End Award-nominated The Sweet Science of Bruising to Wilton's Music Hall, following its sold-out run at Southwark Playhouse last year. As a Victorian music hall, Wilton's offers a new authenticity to the play which follows four female boxers in 1869. The production opens on 7 June, with previews from 5 June, and runs until 29 June.

1869. Deep in the heart of Victorian London is a theatre where only the strongest survive. Controlled by men and constrained by corsets, four very different women are drawn into the dark underground world of female boxing; each finds an unexpected freedom in the ring. As their lives begin to intertwine their journey takes us from grand drawing rooms to rowdy backstreet pubs where the women fight inequality as well as each other. But with the final showdown approaching, only one can become the Lady Boxing Champion of the World...

Fresh from a sold-out run at Southwark Playhouse, Joy Wilkinson (current writer for Doctor Who) brings to life this little-known but important part of the City's history. Featuring an ensemble cast and thrilling live boxing matches, The Sweet Science of Bruising is staged in the electrifying atmosphere of the world's oldest grand music hall located in London's East End, Wilton's Music Hall. Full cast to be announced.

Joy Wilkinson today said, "From the very beginning, I had this fantasy about staging the play at Wilton's, and I'm beyond thrilled that it's finally become a reality. Wilton's is the perfect setting, it opened shortly before our story begins and is exactly the kind of place where you would find our characters. Steeped in history, it conjures just the right atmosphere to transport audiences and really get them immersed in our Victorian lady boxing show. I can't wait!"

Joy Wilkinson is an award-winning writer working across theatre, film, television and radio. Her stage plays have been widely produced in the UK and internationally, and she has won prizes including Soho Theatre's Verity Bargate Award and the International Student Playscript Competition. Her plays include Fair (Finborough Theatre/Trafalgar Studios/UK tour), Now is the Time (part of the Tricycle Theatre's Olivier Award-nominated 'Afghanistan' season which toured the USA and was revived in 2017 by Teatro Elfo Puccini, Milan), Acting Leader ('Women Power and Politics' season, Tricycle Theatre) and Britain's Best Recruiting Sergeant (Unicorn Theatre). She has been awarded two attachments at the National Theatre Studio and is published by Oberon Books and Nick Hern Books. For television, Wilkinson was a graduate of the first BBC Drama Writers Academy, and her screen credits include writing on the most recent series of Doctor Who, as well as Casualty, Holby City, Doctors and Land Girls. In addition, she wrote Nick Nickleby, a critically-acclaimed five-part modernisation of Nicholas Nickleby for BBC1. Wilkinson's extensive work for BBC Radio 4 includes numerous adaptations and original plays.

Kirsty Patrick Ward directs. Her credits include Exactly Like You (VAULT Festival Spirit Award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe/The Vaults), Chef (Scotsman Fringe First Award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Soho Theatre), I'm Not That Kind of Guy (The Vaults and Paines Plough), Mary Louise (The Vaults), Evita (MT4Uth, Belfast), People Like Us (Pleasance, London), Snow White (UK tour for The Old Vic), A Writer's Response to 'Chavs' by Owen Jones (Lyric Hammersmith), Present Tense (Live Theatre), Brave New Worlds (Soho Theatre), Life Support (York Theatre Royal) and Old Vic New Voices: The 24 Hour Plays (The Old Vic). Work as Associate Director includes The Comedy About A Bank Robbery (Criterion Theatre/UK tour), Brideshead Revisited (York Theatre Royal/UK tour) and Young Pretender (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/UK tour). Work as Assistant Director includes Othello and King Lear (Shakespeare's Globe), Our New Girl (Bush Theatre) and Bunny which won a Scotsman Fringe First Award (nabokov/Edinburgh Festival Fringe/UK tour).

Troupe's latest production was The Sweet Science of Bruising by Joy Wilkinson at Southwark Playhouse and was nominated for an Off West End Award for Best New Play. Recent work includes Rasheeda Speaking by Joel Drake Johnson at Trafalgar Studios, which starred Tanya Moodie, Elizabeth Berrington, Sheila Reid and Bo Poraj and was nominated for five Off West End Awards, including Best Production. Other productions at Southwark Playhouse include the centenary year revival of Dear Brutus by J. M. Barrie and The Cardinal by James Shirley, which starred Stephen Boxer and Natalie Simpson for which she won the Ian Charleson Award. It was supported by an inaugural MGCfutures Bursary Award. Troupe's previous rediscoveries at the Finborough Theatre - Rodney Ackland's After October, Robert Bolt's Flowering Cherry and R. C. Sherriff's The White Carnation, which later transferred to Jermyn Street Theatre - have been nominated for a total of five Off West End Awards.

www.troupe.eu

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