Details revealed for Watermill Theatre’s 2023 Spring season

The Watermill Theatre have announced their new programme of work from February to July 2023, a season with one major revival and four new adaptations that explore the deep joys and troubling complexities of life on our shores.

The season begins with a brand-new adaptation of Bill Bryson’s smash-hit memoir Notes From A Small Island from 3 February-18 March 2023. Affectionately celebrating the quirks and eccentricities of British life, the piece is adapted by Tim Whitnall, directed by Paul Hart, and designed by Katie Lias.

This is followed by the first major UK revival of Barney Norris’ award-winning portrayal of learning to live and love with dementia, Visitors, set in his beloved rural Wiltshire. Also directed by Barney Norris, the play will run from 31 March-22 April.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, based on the best-selling novel by Kate Summerscale and adapted for the stage for the first time by playwright Alexandra Wood, will run from 5 May-10 June. A dramatic tale of real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is the original Victorian whodunnit.

The season ends with a brand-new co-production with acclaimed Zimbabwean company Two Gents, which explores connections to New World Slavery in Jane Austen’s classic novel Mansfield Park. An outdoor production touring first to rural locations in Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire, Mansfield Park - directed and adapted by Tonderai Munyevu and Arne Pohlmeier - will complete its run at The Watermill gardens, from 28 June-8 July.  

Artistic Director Paul Hart said: “In this diverse combination of work we’re reinventing how we see ourselves as we explore and celebrate the life and history of our nation. With Bill Bryson’s acerbic observational wit, Notes from a Small Island invites us to see the UK afresh from the viewpoint of a critical friend, while in the topsy turvey world of Through the Looking Glass the relatable young Alice finds reality in absurdity. We're ripping up Mansfield Park in collaboration with Two Gents Productions, uncovering buried conversations in a much-loved classic text. A brand-new production of Visitors takes on new resonance post pandemic as we assess the damage to individual lives and the impact on the care system, and domestic extremes are explored further in the first ever stage adaptation of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher which delves into a fascinating murder in Victorian England which led to a national outcry.”

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