Royal & Derngate announces new Made in Northampton season 2022-2023

The Royal & Derngate Northampton have announced the theatre’s new Made in Northampton season, featuring eighteen productions. The programme encompasses plays, musicals, a feature film, On Demand theatre, podcasts and a new interactive digital work. It engages over 400 artists and visits 45 theatres across the UK, with 10 productions transferring to London.

Newly announced world premieres include Mainstage productions of: Playtime, Unexpected Twist, Wuthering Heights, Henry V and And Then There Were None.

The programme marks the culmination of Royal & Derngate’s work over five years with their Resident Ensemble companies Dancing Brick, DeafConnect, Hydrocracker,  Improbable, Inspector Sands, Spymonkey and The Wardrobe Ensemble, who each devise theatre collaboratively. The season also contains six reimagined classics, two new plays and touring revivals of Made in Northampton productions.

Artistic Director James Dacre said “This season sees the culmination of several strands of strategic activity that have seen us challenge ourselves as a venue to nurture the creation of original work in radically different ways. Whether supporting artists to develop original musical theatre for the midscale, hosting ensemble companies to collaboratively devise their work over the course of several years, inviting playwrights to write for our main stage or supporting artists to reach new audiences in cinemas and online, this body of work has widened our practice, broadened our reach and helped shape our future.”

The season opens with the first ever stage production of Jacques Tati’s comic masterpiece Playtime, recently named one of the top films of all time by the BFI. Grammy Award-winning composers Chilly Gonzalez and Martha Wainwright will write original songs for the production which is created by Dancing Brick with comedy direction from Peepolykus’ John Nicholson, design by Olivier nominee Michael Vale and sound by Kayode Gomez. It is followed by a revival of Dacre’s 2019 production of Oscar nominee Anthony McCarten’s The Two Popes with Anton Lesser and Nicholas Woodeson, with original music by Anne Dudley for a national tour and London premiere at Rose Theatre. 

Building upon this programme of original musicals, James Dacre will reunite with regular collaborators Roy Williams and designer Frankie Bradshaw to direct a musical adaptation of Michael Rosen’s Unexpected Twist, with original music by BAC Beatbox Academy’s Conrad Murray and R&B phenomenon Yaya Bey.

The theatre will also launch a digital musical, Scene Unseen, which is an intimate new cabaret about identity, sexuality, and what makes us who we are by Jessica Walker and Joseph Atkins. It is captured on film with illustrations by award winning animator Thomas Hicks and is available to watch online in August. A co-production with English Touring Opera, it is a powerful and personal hour-long song cycle with a mix of humour, classicism, torch, and a touch of Eighties synth. 

In the new year, Inspector Sands bring their characteristic humour, passion and pathos to the infamous love story of Heathcliff and Catherine, when Wuthering Heights takes to the Royal stage in April. Channelling Emily Brontë’s piercing wit and fierce emotion, this new production will feature exhilarating music, high winds and plenty of mud. 

Following collaborations on King John and Richard III, Royal & Derngate partners again with Shakespeare’s Globe and Headlong for Henry V, directed by Holly Race Roughan, exploring our nation’s history and what it means to be British.

A reimagining of the best-selling crime novel of all time, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, will open in September 2023 on the Derngate stage. Reuniting the creative team behind the smash-hit Love From A Stranger, director Lucy Bailey returns with UK Theatre Award-winning designer Mike Britton. A co-production with Fiery Angel, it will tour the UK after opening in Northampton. 

The season also sees UK tours and transfers to London for several of last year’s Made in Northampton productions, with full dates and details still to be announced. These will include their acclaimed productions of The Wellspring by Barney Norris and David Owen Norris, An Improbable Musical and Told by an Idiot’s remarkable story of the greatest comedy double act that nearly was, Charlie and Stan.

Following the release of the album Incidental:Music For The Stage in 2021, Royal & Derngate continues its work outside of the theatre space with a new feature film release and a musical release on Audible. The Royal & Derngate and Theatre Royal Bath co-production of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, performed by Ralph Fiennes with designs by Hildegard Bechtler will be adapted for cinema and television release by Sophie Fiennes. The Selfish Giant will be available on Audible with music by three-time BRIT Award-winning Guy Chambers and featuring readings by Stephen Fry, Joseph Marcell, Giles Terera, Sharon D Clarke, Roger Allam and Patricia Routledge. Dates are to be confirmed for both releases. 

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