Lyceum season 2014-15 launched

May 19 2014 | By More

World premieres and classics

By Thom Dibdin

The Royal Lyceum’s 2014/15 season has been announced, with a pair of world premieres bookending a programme otherwise packed with classic theatre.

Lyceum Artistic Director Mark Thomson. Photo © Royal Lyceum Theatre

Lyceum Artistic Director Mark Thomson. Photo © Royal Lyceum Theatre

It is a challenging season too, according to artistic director Mark Thomson, who told Æ that it is a programme born out of a period of great debate which invites its audience to reflect on their way of thinking and values.

There is much comedy, however, to start and stop the season.

DC Jackson’s Kill Johnny Glendenning is being billed as a brutal comedy of fatal errors, taking aim at the tabloid celebrity and macho glamour of the Glasgow gangster life. Opening in September, the Mark Thomson-directed show will then transfer to co-producers, the Glasgow Citizens.

Closing the season in April 2015, is a new adaptation of a Carlo Goldoni farce: The Venetian Twins. Goldini is most famed for the Servant of Two Masters and this earlier  work has had a new adaptation by Tony Cownie, who will also direct.

Between these two it is a season of solid classics. The late October offering is Sue Glover’s powerful Bondagers, set in the famine of 1850s rural Scotland. Lu Kemp will direct – the first of two female directors in the six-play season – seven including the Christmas show.

Even that Christmas show is a modern classic: The BFG, in David Wood’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s story. Returning after last year’s successful take on A Christmas Carol will be director Andrew Panton and designer Becky Minto.

John Dove takes on the opening production of 2015 in January, with Brian Friel’s Faith Healer. Fresh from his success with Pressure, Dove has a string of strong productions at the Lyceum under his belt and now returns to a playwright he last directed at the Lyceum in 2007, with Living Quarters.

Thomson directs his second production of the season in February, when he takes on Brecht’s mighty The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

March sees the arrival of a new Associate Artist for the Lyceum: Amanda Gaughan, who will be directing Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. The season’s second female director, after a season with none, it will be fascinating to see her work with Richard Eyre’s adaptation.

Commenting on the season, Thomson told Æ: “It feels like a big season, we have got Brecht, Goldoni, Ibsen, we’ve got Friel, so we have got big contemporary and classical authors.

“These seasons emerge for a great complexity of reasons. But it is about the things which are buzzing round my head and society’s head and what it really does feel like it is about big society plays with real human beings and their dilemmas as being interesting, fascinating, provoking journeys for an audience today.

“They are about individuals and groups of individuals who are somehow hitting against extant moral and social and political mores and challenging them. For me, if society is up for debate right now – which it is – it is absolutely about keeping those social issues and human issues, and the idea of change at the forefront.”

The 2014/15 season in full:

Kill Johnny Glendenning
By DC Jackson
Directed by Lyceum Artistic Director Mark Thomson
World premiere Lyceum commission co-produced with The Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow
Dates: 17 September– 11 October 2014

Bondagers
By Sue Glover
Directed by Lu Kemp
Dates: 22 October – 15 November 2014

The BFG
By Roald Dahl, adapted by David Wood
Directed by Andrew Panton
Dates: 28 November 2014 – 3 January 2015

Faith Healer
By Brian Friel
Directed by Lyceum Associate Artist John Dove
Dates: 14 January – 7 February 2015

The Caucasian Chalk Circle
By Bertholt Brecht
Directed by Lyceum Artistic Director Mark Thomson
Dates: 18 February – 14 March 2015

Hedda Gabler
By Henrik Ibsen in a version by Richard Eyre
Directed by Lyceum Associate Artist Amanda Gaughan
Dates: 20 March – 11 April 2015

The Venetian Twins
By Carlo Goldoni, in a new version by Tony Cownie
Directed by Lyceum Associate Artist Tony Cownie
Dates: 24 April – 16 May 2015

ENDS

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