TIME for theatre fans to begin looking forward to more active matters at Malvern’s Festival Theatre, is back at last. 

 

Shows will return in summer with audiences still having to adhere to the current Government social distancing guidelines

 

The shows on their way are way are A Splinter of Ice – ( June 8), Tell Me on A Sunday –  JJune 15), Absurd Person Singular (June 2), Four Quartets – (July 19),The Woman in Black (August 9) - Looking Good Dead –  (August 30).

 

Coming up initially is A Splinter of Ice from June 8, Tell Me on a Sunday a week later and then for a further week it's Absurd Person Singular from June 29.

 

Then into July it's Copenhagen from the fifth, – Oleanna on July 12, Four Quartetsfrom July19 and then in August it is The Woman in Black opening for a week from the 19th – and also and Looking Good Dead from August 30.

 

The Festival  reopens on June 8,  This is the Cold War thriller A Splinter - of Ice presented by the award-winning Original Theatre Company, It stars. Oliver Ford Davies (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) and Stephen Boxer (The Crown) in Ben Brown''s new play..

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country,” - EM Forster

Moscow 1987, as the Cold War begins to thaw and Britain’s greatest living novelist Graham Greene meets with his old MI6 boss, Kim Philby, Britain’s greatest spy… and traitor.

Under the watchful eye of Rufa, Russian memoir writer and Kim’s last wife, the two men set about catching up on old times.

 

With a new world order breaking around them how much did the writer of The Third Man know about Philby’s secret life as a spy? Did the Red Spy Philby betray his friend as well as his country?

…and who is listening-in in the next-door room?

 

From the writer and director of the award-winning West End hit play Three Days in May which inspired the Oscar winning film Darkest Hour. Brown’s coruscating new political drama explores an unlikely friendship. Yet a friendship woven of deceit as well as loyalty

Returning to the stage following her acclaimed performances in the National Theatre’s production of A Taste of Honey, Oliver!, One Man Two Governors, Annie, Abigail’s Party and Calamity Jane, Jodie Prenger stars as Emma, in the 2021 UK tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s classic musical, Tell Me On A Sunday. She reprises a role she first bought to life in 2016.

TELL Me charts the romantic misadventures of a young English girl in New York in the heady days of the 1980’s. 

Brimming with optimism, she seeks success and love. But as she weaves her way through the maze of the city and her own anxieties, frustrations and heartaches she begins to wonder whether she’s been looking for love in all the wrong places.

This iconic musical features Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wonderful score, accompanied live by West End musicians, including the chart-topping Take That Look Off Your Face, and title track Tell Me On A Sunday.

Previously performed by iconic musical theatre stars Marti Webb and Sarah Brightman, this new production includes an intimate post-show chat with Jodie charting her life, love and experience playing the role of Emma.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s numerous awards include 7 TONYs, 3 Grammys, 7 Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, 2 Emmys and the Richard Rodgers Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre.

Don Black is an Oscar winning lyricist, includes (Born Free), who has penned numerous James Bond theme tunes and chart hits including Michael Jackson’s Ben and Lulu’s To Sir With Love.

Four Quartets by TS Eliot is directed by Ralph Fiennes and is a Theatre Royal Bath and Northampton's Royal Derngate, joint offering.

 "Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.”

 

 Fiennes directs and stars in a world premiere adaptation of Eliot’s Four Quartets and offers welcome audiences back to live theatre. Compelling, moving and symphonic, Four Quartets offers four interwoven meditations on the nature of time, faith, and the quest for spiritual enlightenment.

 

It’s mostly written during WWII when the closure of playhouses during the Blitz interrupted Eli ot's work.

 

Also work from two of Britain’s greatest living playwrights. Alan Ayckbourn’s comic masterpiece Absurd Person Singular is a social satire set in 1970s suburbia and Michael Frayn’s multi-award-winning masterwork Copenhagen.

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 There’s also David Mamet’s Oleanna which opened nearly 30 years ago and caused global uproar. It addres es issues which are strikingly current today  with a fascinating opportunity to see a landmark play from the perspective of our ‘MeToo\ era.

Malvern Theatres Young Company has a production in August with Sophocles

Electra. Following the success of their previous productions of Under Milk Wood and Antigone, Electra will be presented ‘in the round’ and with no charge for admission.

Tickets are also available for the previously announced world premiere stage production of Looking Good Dead, starring award-winning actor and EastEnders icon, Adam Woodyatt, and the classic must-see thriller The Woman in Black.