UP ‘N’ UNDER

WED 11 JUNE – SAT 21 JUNE

John Godber

Directed by Lorna Middleton

“Heartfelt, brilliantly knowing in its parodies and often squealingly

funny……it celebrates a poignant if glorious past and leaves the future

an open question.”

Paul Allen, The Guardian

Up 'n' Under is a riotous Olivier Award-winning comedy about a depleted and ragged amateur rugby league team, who are audaciously taking on their arch rivals. The play follows Arthur, a former professional, who's tasked with training the Wheatsheaf Arms, a team that's never won a game and spends more time in the pub than on the pitch. Arthur enlists the help of Hazel, a female fitness guru, to turn the team around. 

John Godber is a prolific playwright known for his hits Teechers, Bouncers, and April in Paris. He was the Artistic Director of Hull Truck theatre company for 26 years and early in his appointment, realising that in Hull a ticket to the rugby was probably more popular than to the theatre, he wrote Up ‘n Under to tempt the sports loving locals.

It was a huge hit when it premiered and continues to delight audiences everywhere.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS

By Christopher Marlowe in a new adaptation by David Fletcher.

Wednesday 16 July - Saturday 26 July

Directed by David Fletcher

Christopher Marlowe's notorious tale of vanity, greed and damnation will be staged- with the creative team unconfined! - in a new adaptation by David Fletcher.

Faustus is a brilliant but embittered academic, a solitary scholar who has exhausted the confines of human knowledge. Frustrated with the futility of religion, law and science he is desperate for a deeper understanding of the universe – and for the worldwide fame that he believes it will bring.

Risking everything, he conjures the demon Mephistopheles and asks him to strike a deal with Lucifer, the Devil. The deal? Twenty four years of absolute knowledge and infinite power in exchange for his soul. Despite being tormented by doubt, Faustus agrees to the deal and signs in blood. But as he begins to revel in his new powers, the world around him starts to collapse and the clock inexorably counts down to the final moment of reckoning………

BEGINNING

By David Eldridge

Directed by Viki Betts

Wednesday 24 Sept – Saturday 4 Oct

“A play that leaves you caring deeply about its characters and which adds unusual poignancy to the dating game.”

Michael Billington, The Guardian

Every story starts somewhere……………

It's the early hours of the morning and Danny is the last straggler at Laura's party. The flat's in a mess…..and so are they. Maybe time for one more drink?

'You didn't fancy it then?'

'Fancy what?'

'Getting in the taxi.'

'No.'

David Eldridge's play Beginning is the first of a trilogy of plays (alongside Middle and End) looking at love and relationships.

A sharp and astute two-hander that takes an intimate look at the first fragile moments of risking your heart and taking a chance. It movingly reminds us that even in the age of social media and internet dating sites, forging a connection with other people remains as problematic as ever

Beginning was first staged at the National Theatre, London, in the Dorfman auditorium, in October 2017. It transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End in January 2018. David Eldridge is widely regarded as one of the prominent playwriting voices of his generation, whose productions have premiered across the UK.

THE CAGE PROTECTS ME

By Giles Allen-Bowden

Directed by Giles Allen-Bowden

MAIN HOUSE PREMIERE

Friday 31st October - Saturday 8th November

Every night for the last ten years, a pack of wolves has descended upon the town of Drylake, Texas. Their unbroken siege has left one survivor standing, a man named Red, who by day, fortifies the town’s church, and by night, prays his work holds until the morning.

But to say Red is alone isn’t strictly true. Amidst the chaos, two voices in his head have come to life. They are his logical reasoning, Sense, and his paranoia, Omen, and though Red cannot see them, they are keeping him alive in this endless stalemate.

That is until a woman named Élan, on the run from her past, crashes into their lives. And with her arrival, old ghosts will resurface, and new fears will be brought to harrowing life.

The Cage Protects Me is a new ghost story by Giles Allan-Bowden, premiering in the Loft studio, that explores our relationship to the horrors of the world and the horrors we inflict, set against a Western frontier that has learned to push back.

DANCING AT LUGHNASA

By Brian Friel

Directed by Tom O’Connor

MAIN HOUSE

Wednesday 03 December - Saturday 13 December

“You leave convinced that this is one of Friel's finest plays.”

Michael Billington, Guardian

Following Brian Friel’s award-winning play Translations performed at the Loft last year to great acclaim, we are now staging his greatly loved 1990 play Dancing at Lughnasa.

This semi-autobiographical play, set in 1936 in the Ireland of his boyhood, features five unmarried sisters based on his mother and aunts.

It is Harvest time in County Donegal, 1936.

Outside the village of Ballybeg, the five Mundy sisters battle poverty to raise seven-year-old Michael and care for their brother, ‘Uncle’ Jack.

During the Festival of Lughnasa, Pagans and Christians meet and collide. The sisters fight each other, love each other, dance together, yearn and survive.

Brian Friel’s Olivier Award-winning play, most recently performed in a revival at The National Theatre in 2023, is an astonishing evocation of a family’s world on the brink of change.

Friel’s artful blend of nothing and everything happening at once is finely calibrated here. Brian Friel is one of the finest writers and this is a showcase for his skill.  We love to bring his work to the Loft stage.