After sell-out runs at Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester, and The Park Theatre, London, in 2022, Maureen Lipman returns to the West End with a performance of unassailable greatness (What’s On Stage). This award winning, critically acclaimed production of Martin Sherman’s Rose transfers to The Ambassador’s Theatre for only 28 performances, from Tuesday 23rd May 2023.
Olivier Award-winning Maureen Lipman has performed with The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has starred in innumerable West End productions including Outside Edge, Messiah, See How They Run, Wonderful Town, Re:Joyce, Glorious, Oklahoma, A Little Night Music and Daytona. For the last five years she has been delighting television audiences as Evelyn Plummer on ITV’s Coronation Street. Other classic television appearances include The Evacuees, The Knowledge, Agony, Smiley’s People, Doctor Who and Ladies of Letters.
Rose is written by award winning writer Martin Sherman whose plays include Bent, Messiah, A MadHouse in Goa, When She Danced, Some Sunny Day and Gently Down The Stream. His body of work also includes films Alive and Kicking and Mrs Henderson Presents and the Broadway Musical The Boy From Oz.
Rose is directed by Scott Le Crass, designed by David Shields with musical composition and Sound design by Julian Star with lighting design by Jane Lalljee.
Maureen Lipman reprises her award-winning performance as Rose, a woman whose tumultuous journey through anarchic times takes her from the devastation of Nazi- occupied Europe to the allure of the American dream. Through the life of one woman, Rose tells the story of a century where everything changed except the violence of the strong against the weak.
The original production of Rose was produced at The National Theatre and on Broadway in 1999. It is perhaps even more relevant today, with the plight of refugees and allegations of antisemitism continuing to dominate the news. This powerful production is a moving reminder of the harrowing events that shaped the last century.
Maureen Lipman comments, I am delighted to be putting Rose back on her bench for a limited run at the Ambassadors in May. I thought I could never have the power to revisit Martin Sherman’s mystical, magical deeply philosophical and wildly funny creation, but Rose is in my blood and she has to be revived.
Martin Sherman comments, Maureen Lipman’s performance as Rose is the greatest gift a playwright could ever dream of. Performance is perhaps the wrong word; she totally inhabits the role, the woman, the space, the language, the times, the events. I’m so happy that her astonishing alchemy has the opportunity to be witnessed again, for four weeks (only!) at the Ambassadors Theatre.
Find out more about Rose at http://roseonstage.co.uk/. You will be able to book tickets for Rose from 12pm, Friday 27th January.
