CURVE ANNOUCE NEW PRODUCTION OF ROALD DAHL’S FANTASTIC MR FOX TO TOUR THE UK IN 2017
Curve and Nuffield in association with Lyric Hammersmith present
ROALD DAHL’S
FANTASTIC MR FOX
Adapted for the stage by Sam Holcroft
Directed by Maria Aberg Designed by Tom Scutt Music by Arthur Darvill
Lyrics by Darren Clark, Arthur Darvill, Sam Holcroft and Al Muriel
3 – 9 April
UK TOUR: from 25 January until July 2017
In celebration of Roald Dahl Day marking Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday on 13 September, producing partners Curve and Nuffield in association with Lyric Hammersmith, today announce a major UK tour of Roald Dahl’s FANTASTIC MR FOX, in a brand new musical adaptation for the stage. Following its world premiere at Nuffield Southampton Theatres this Christmas (22 Nov – 8 Jan. National Press Night: Wed 30 November, 7pm), FANTASTIC MR FOX will transfer to the Lyric Hammersmith for a 4-week run (25 Jan – 19 Feb) and will then tour to a further 16 venues nationwide, including Curve (3 – 9 April). This brand new family show is a playful re-telling of Roald Dahl’s much-loved book; a brilliantly witty tale of the clever Mr Fox outfoxing three greedy farmers, brought to life on stage with live music and songs. Tickets are now on sale.
This new musical adaptation of FANTASTIC MR FOX is a flagship production for the Roald Dahl 100 celebrations marking the centenary year of the world’s number one storyteller and hotly follows the release of Steven Spielberg’s movie version of THE BFG. Published in 1970, Roald Dahl’s FANTASTIC MR FOX delivers family fun at its finest and remains a firm favourite amongst Roald Dahl fans of all ages. The story of Fantastic Mr Fox and his heroic adventures became a global sensation following the popular success of Wes Anderson’s Oscar-nominated movie version (released in 2009), which starred George Clooney in the title role.
Luke Kelly, Managing Director of the Roald Dahl Literary Estate and Roald Dahl’s grandson says:
“We’re excited to be working with such an accomplished partner as Nuffield Theatre to bring FANTASTIC MR FOX to the stage in this brand new musical version, and delighted that so many people across the UK will be able to see it during the 2017 tour.”
This new commission by Curve and Nuffield in association with Lyric Hammersmith brings together a stellar creative team: playwright Sam Holcroft, director Maria Aberg, designer Tom Scutt, composer Arthur Darvill, lyricists Darren Clark, Arthur Darvill, Sam Holcroft and Al Muriel, sound designer Claire Windsor, lighting designer Lee Curran, casting director Annelie Powell and movement director Ayse Tashkiran. Casting to be announced.
Chris Stafford, Chief Executive and Nikolai Foster, Artistic Director at Curve, say:
“We are delighted to be working with our friends at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton on this new production. We’re thrilled to be working with an exceptional creative team, led by Maria Aberg and that FANTASTIC MR FOX will join recent Curve productions such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sister Act, reaching new audiences and touring across the UK.”
Sam Hodges, Director at Nuffield Southampton Theatres says:
“This co-production, with our partners Curve, marks significant growth for Nuffield. I’m delighted to be able to announce our second London transfer in as many years and an ambitious national and international tour, reinforcing Nuffield as one of the country’s leading producing companies.”
Sean Holmes, Artistic Director at the Lyric Hammersmith says: “We are delighted to be the London home of FANTASTIC MR FOX, continuing our tradition of world-class family theatre.”
Sam Holcroft’s most recent play, Rules For Living premiered at the National Theatre in 2015. She was the Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio from 2013-14 and was the Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Traverse Theatre in 2009-10. In 2014 she was a recipient of the Windham Campbell Prize for Literature in the Drama category and in 2009 she won the Tom Erhardt Award for up and coming writers. She is currently under commission from the Royal Court Theatre. Other theatre credits include: The Wardrobe and Edgar And Annabel (National Theatre); Dancing Bears (Soho Theatre); While You Lie (Traverse Theatre); Pink (Tricycle Theatre as part of the Women, Power and Politics Season); Vanya (adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate); Cockroach (National Theatre of Scotland).
Maria Aberg’s Dr. Faustus for the Royal Shakespeare Company opened at the Barbican this week following its Stratford season. Other directing credits include: The White Devil, As You Like It, King John, The Gods Weep, Days Of Significance (RSC); Polly Stenham’s Hotel (National Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing (Manchester Royal Exchange); Ionesco’s The Chairs (Theatre Royal Bath); D.C. Moore’s Alaska (Royal Court). Maria has also directed at Hampstead Theatre and Trafalgar Studios. Forthcoming directing projects include: The Great Gatsby (Royal & Derngate, Birmingham Rep) and The Winter’s Tale (Romateatern, Sweden).
Nuffield Associate Tom Scutt was nominated for a Tony and an Outer Critics’ Circle Award for Best Costume Design for King Charles III in 2016. He received the Whatsonstage Award for Best Set Designer in 2013 for Constellations and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at Kensington Gardens. In 2007 he received the Linbury Biennial Prize for Stage Design and the Jocelyn Herbert Award for his work with Headlong Theatre. His many theatre credits include: King Charles III (Almeida, West End, Broadway); Constellations (West End, Manhattan Theatre Club, Royal Court); The Deep Blue Sea, Medea, 13 (National Theatre); Jesus Christ Superstar (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Elegy, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Broadway); The Weir (Donmar Warehouse); A Number (Nuffield, Young Vic, Tour); Mr Burns, King Lear, Through A Glass Darkly, The Merchant of Venice (Almeida Theatre); East is East (Trafalgar Studios, National tour); Hope, The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas, No Quarter, Remembrance Day (Royal Court); Absent Friends (West End); South Downs/The Browning Version (Chichester Festival Theatre, West End); Romeo and Juliet (Royal Shakespeare Company); Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (Headlong), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Nuffield).
Arthur Darvill is an actor and composer, best-known for his regular appearances as ‘Rory’ in BBC TV’s Doctor Who and as ‘Rev. Paul Coates’ on ITV’s Broadchurch. Arthur’s most recent theatre work as composer includes: I Want My Hat Back (National Theatre); I Heart Peterborough (Eastern Angles); The Bacchae (English Touring Theatre); It’s About Time (Nabokov/Latitude); and Jack And The Beanstalk (Lyric Hammersmith). He won the Musical Theatre Matters Award, and was nominated for the 2009 Evening Standard Theatre Awards for Been So Long (Young Vic/ETT).
FANTASTIC MR FOX is produced by Curve and Nuffield in association with Lyric Hammersmith
www.fantasticmrfoxlive.com Twitter: @MrFoxLive #FantasticMrFox Facebook: /FantasticMrFoxLive
ABOUT ROALD DAHL AND HIS LEGACY:
Roald Dahl was a spy, ace fighter-pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and many more brilliant stories.
He remains the World’s No.1 storyteller.
Born in Cardiff of Norwegian descent, Roald Dahl (1916–1990) joined the RAF at the age of 23 and began writing, initially for adults, after being injured in a plane crash during WW2.
Sitting in a hut at the bottom of his garden, surrounded by odd bits and pieces such as a suitcase (used as a footrest), his own hipbone (which he’d had replaced) and a heavy ball of metal foil (made from years’ worth of chocolate wrappers), he went on to write some of the world’s best-loved children’s stories. His first children’s story, James and the Giant Peach, was published in 1961, was a hit and every subsequent book became a best-seller.
Today, his stories are available in 58 languages and, by a conservative estimate, he has sold more than 250 million books. Many of these stories have also been adapted for stage and screen, including the 1971 film classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wes Anderson’s acclaimed Fantastic Mr Fox, and the multi-award winning Matilda The Musical from the RSC with music by Tim Minchin. The latest Roald Dahl story to hit the big screen is Steven Spielberg’s #1 box office blockbuster The BFG.
2016 marks Roald Dahl’s centenary. Entitled Roald Dahl 100, 2016 marks 100 years since the birth of Roald Dahl – the world’s number one storyteller. There will be celebrations for Roald Dahl 100 throughout 2016, delivering a year packed with gloriumptious treats and surprises for everyone.
Roald Dahl said, “If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
We believe in doing good things. That’s why ten percent of all Roald Dahl income* goes to our charity partners. We have supported causes including: specialist children’s nurses, grants for families in need, and educational outreach programmes.
Find out more at roalddahl.com
The Roald Dahl Charitable Trust is a registered UK charity (no. 1119330)
* All author payments and royalty income net of third party commissions.
ABOUT CURVE:
Curve is a major producing theatre, creating exceptional and compelling experiences. We use our unique home and talent to entertain, inspire and engage with a diverse audience and play a leading role in the development of our industry, our city and our global community. At the heart of this is the ambition to offer our local audiences world-class theatrical experiences.
Under the leadership of Chief Executive Chris Stafford and Artistic Director Nikolai Foster, Curve is developing a reputation for producing, programming and touring a bold and diverse programme of musicals, plays, new work and dance. All of this presented alongside a dynamic mix of community engagement and learning opportunities, which firmly places audiences and communities at the heart of what Curve does. Recent productions and co-productions Made At Curve include: our Community Company production of Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone, Spring Awakening (with NYMT), Sister Act (& UK tour), Legally Blonde (& Daegu Opera Festival, South Korea – Winner Best Musical), Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (& Haymarket Theatre, London & UK tour), Ishy Din’s Wipers (in collaboration with Belgrade Theatre Coventry & Watford Palace), Roald Dahl’s The Witches (& Lyric Theatre, Hong Kong & UK tour), Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Hairspray (& UK tour), Shakespeare’s Richard III, Akram Khan’s Until the Lions (with Roundhouse, London), Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ – The Musical, and Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing (& UK national tour).
For more information, please visit curveonline.co.uk
Curve is a registered charity (no. 230708)
ABOUT NST – NUFFIELD SOUTHAMPTON THEATRES:
- NST – Nuffield Southampton Theatres is one of the UK’s leading professional theatre companies based at the Nuffield Theatre at the heart of the Highfield campus of the University of Southampton.
- NST (previously Nuffield) won ‘Regional Theatre of the Year’ at The Stage Awards 2015 & Best Design UK Theatre 2015 (The Hudsucker Proxy).
- The Company is led by Samuel Hodges, supported by a team of associates: directors Blanche McIntyre, Natalie Abrahami and Michael Longhurst, designer Tom Scutt and playwright Adam Brace, and develops and produces work with some of the UK’s most exciting and dynamic regional theatres, including Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and Royal & Derngate, Northampton.
- In 2017 NST – Nuffield Southampton Theatres will co-produce with Headlong and West Yorkshire Playhouse a new production of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion directed by Sam Pritchard (24 April – 13 May 2017).
- In 2017, NST will open a new arts venue in the centre of Southampton at Studio 144. This new venue will include a flexible 447 seat main house theatre, a 135 seat studio, screening facilities, rehearsal and workshop spaces. It will transform NST’s ability to show new high quality professional work from local, national and international artists. It will expand the programme to include dance, film and music. Nuffield will run the new city centre venue alongside its existing theatre on the University of Southampton’s Highfield Campus.
- Nuffield Laboratory is the creative development programme for new work and new talent; through which Nuffield collaborate with artists at all stages in their careers to experiment with new ideas. All of Nuffield’s new produced work is developed alongside the Laboratory, which also provides a programme of talent development opportunities such as creative residencies, scratch nights, networking opportunities and skills development workshops.
- Nuffield Connect aims to enrich the experience of Nuffield and its work for all through a vibrant programme of engagement and enrichment. Nuffield Connect engages over 5000 people through its programme animation activities, its Youth Theatre and Drama Club, its adult workshops and outreach projects including RSC Open Stages. Nuffield also continues to host the prestigious Hampshire Youth Theatre annually.
- Nuffield is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation and a registered charity, receiving additional core funding from the University of Southampton, Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council.
For more information visit nstheatres.co.uk
Nuffield Southampton Theatres is a registered charity (no. 286876)
ABOUT LYRIC HAMMERSMITH:
The Lyric Hammersmith is one of the UK’s leading producing theatres. Over its hundred and twenty one year history it has been responsible for creating some of the UK’s most adventurous and acclaimed theatrical work. It has also gained a national reputation for its work with and for children and young people. Recent productions include the smash hit Bugsy Malone, Ghost Stories which transferred to the West End and has toured the world and the Olivier award-winning production of Sarah Kane’s Blasted.
The Lyric’s dual commitment to producing the highest quality contemporary theatre, whilst nurturing the creativity of young people is what makes it unique within the cultural ecology of the UK. It is a local theatre rooted in its community with a national and international reputation for the quality and innovation of its artistic work.
In April 2015 the Lyric reopened following a multi-million pound capital project, which saw the addition of the Reuben Foundation Wing housing state-of-the-art facilities for theatre, dance, film, music, digital and more. The ‘new’ Lyric is now the largest creative hub in West London and home to an innovative partnership of like-minded leading arts organisations who work together to deliver life-changing creative opportunities for thousands of young West Londoners.
For more information, please visit lyric.co.uk
Lyric is a registered charity (no. 278518)
VENUE LISTINGS:
WORLD PREMIERE:
22 November 2016 – 8 January 2017 SOUTHAMPTON Nuffield Theatre
Performance times vary, see website for schedule University Rd, Southampton SO17 1TR
Tickets £10 – £25 Box Office 023 8067 1771 | nuffieldtheatre.co.uk
UK TOUR 2017:
Wednesday 25 January – Sunday 19 February LONDON Lyric Hammersmith
Performance times vary, see website for schedule Lyric Square, King St, London W6 0QL
Tickets £15 – £40 Box Office 020 8741 6850
lyric.co.uk
Tuesday 21 – Saturday 25 February CARDIFF New Theatre
Tue 7pm, Wed 2.30pm, Thu & Fri 2.30pm & 7pm Park Pl, Cardiff CF10 3LN Sat 11am & 3pm Box Office 029 2087 8889
Tickets £11 – £23.50 newtheatrecardiff.co.uk
Tuesday 28 February – Sunday 5 March DARTFORD Orchard Theatre
Tue, Thu, Fri 7pm; Wed 10.30am & 5.30pm Home Gardens, Dartford DA1 1ED
Sat 10.30am & 2pm; Sun 10am Box Office 01322 220000
Tickets: £17.50 – £22.50 orchardtheatre.co.uk
Monday 3 – Sunday 9 April LEICESTER Curve
Mon 7pm, Tue 10am, Wed & Thu 1.30pm & 7pm 60 Rutland St, Leicester LE1 1SB
Fri 7pm, Sat 11am & 3pm & 7pm, Sun 11am & 3pm Box Office 0116 242 3595
Tickets: £10 – £20 curveonline.co.uk
Tuesday 11 – Saturday 15 April OXFORD Playhouse
Sales open in Nov 11-12 Beaumont St, Oxford OX1 2LW
Box Office 01865 305305
oxfordplayhouse.com
Tuesday 18 – Saturday 22 April COVENTRY Belgrade
Tue – Sat 7pm Corporation St, Coventry CV1 1GS
Wed, Thu, Sat 2pm Box Office 024 7655 3055
Tickets: £18.50 – £22.50 belgrade.co.uk
Tuesday 2 – Saturday 5 May SHEFFIELD Lyceum Theatre
Sales open in Nov 55 Norfolk St, Sheffield S1 1DA
Box Office 0141 249 6000
sheffieldtheatres.co.uk
Monday 15 – Saturday 20 May EDINBURGH King’s Theatre Mon – Sat 7.30pm 2 Leven St, Edinburgh EH3 9LQ
Wed & Sat 2.30pm Box Office 0131 529 6000
Tickets: £12.50 – £22.50 edtheatres.com
Monday 22 – Saturday 27 May GLASGOW Theatre Royal
Mon – Sat 7pm 282 Hope St, Glasgow G2 3QA
Thu 1.30pm, Sat 2.30pm Box Office 0844 871 7602*
Tickets: £14 – £25 (Premium £31.50) atgtickets.com/glasgow
Monday 5 – Saturday 10 June HIGH WYCOMBE Wycombe Swan
Mon – Fri 7pm, Thu 2pm St Mary St, High Wycombe HP11 2XE
Sat 10.30am & 2.30pm Box Office 01494 552875
Tickets: £17 – £25 wycombeswan.co.uk
Tuesday 13 – Saturday 17 June PLYMOUTH Theatre Royal Plymouth Sales open 23 Sep Royal Parade, Plymouth PL1 2TR
Box Office 01752 267 222
theatreroyal.com
Wednesday 21 – Saturday 24 June NORWICH Theatre Royal
Sales open in Nov Theatre St, Norwich NR2 1RL
Box Office 01603 63 00 00
theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk
– FURTHER TOUR DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED –
Fees may apply. Suitable for ages 5+
A co-production with Northern Stage and the Royal Exchange Theatre.
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