Moronkẹ Akinola, Hammed Animashaun, Ayesha Antoine, Alex Austin, Lisa Hammond, Mariam Haque, Zachary Hing, Siu-see Hung, Wendy Kweh , Tasha Lim, Ntonga Mwanza, Rochelle Rose and Liza Sadovy have been cast in Edition 2 of the Royal Court Theatre’s Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative.
Living Newspaper is a weekly live newspaper running over six weeks. It is urgent, responsive and fast – with writers filing their pieces by Tuesday and actors performing from Thursday, script-in-hand, hot off the press.
Due to Monday’s government announcement that London will be moved to Tier 3 restrictions from Wednesday 16 December 2020, Edition 2 of the Living Newspaper will now be available as an online event only and is available to stream from 5pm Sunday 20 December 2020 – 4pm Sunday 27 December 2020.
Edition 2 has been written by Ryan Calais Cameron, Si’an Chen, Yuqun Fan, Tom Fowler, Nick Gill, Ruby Holder, Emteaz Hussain, Jammz, Yasmin Joseph, Anchuli Felicia King, Tife Kusoro, Mark Ravenhill, Ruby Thomas and Tom Wells, with Si’an Chen’s contribution translated by Jeremy Tiang.
The designers are Shankho Chaudhuri, Debbie Duru, Cara Evans, Sandra Falase, Zoë Hurwitz and Chloe Lamford who have been working as a Design Collective since early 2020. Together they have radically imagined the Royal Court’s spaces for Living Newspaper. Each edition will be overseen by one of the Design Collective, with Shankho Chaudhuri and Sandra Falase leading on Edition 2.
Lighting Designers on Edition 2 areSimisola Lucia Majekodunmi and Nao Nagai, with Sound Design by Tony Gayle, Elena Peña and Giles Thomas, Composition and live music performance by Jammz, Musical Direction by Cassandra Gurling and Movement Direction by Ivan Blackstock.
The facilitators for Edition 2 include Royal Court staff Jane Fallowfield (Literary Manager), Myah Jeffers (Literary Associate), Philip Morris (Trainee Director), Sam Pritchard (Associate Director – International) and theatre director Roy Alexander Weise MBE.
Each weekly edition of the newspaper will be created by both a collective of writers responsible for the front page and overall tone of the edition and contributing writers offering individual pieces. It will include performances relating to the moment we are in with local and global perspectives, longer form pieces, dating columns, a cartoon of the week, the world in pictures, a weather room, agony aunts, horoscopes and much more, and all inspired by world events as well as the Design Collective’s spaces. It will be performed in promenade, taking audiences, in person (where allowed) and online, around the Royal Court building on a journey never before available to the public in this way.
More than 200 freelance artists will work on the project – as well as the writers - over 60 actors (including a commitment to cast a 2020 graduate each week as part of the company), animators, choreographers, composers, designers, illustrators, lighting designers, sound designers, stage managers and technicians.
There is an extensive participation project running alongside Living Newspaper including a series of digital resources, workshops, and a newly formed young writers’ group who will be contributing to editions in the New Year.
Tickets to watch the digital capture of Living Newspaper Edition 2 online at 5pm on Sunday 20 December 2020 are on sale now. Prices start at £10 with the Edition also available to watch on-demand from 10am Monday 21 December – 4pm Sunday 27 December (GMT).
Book tickets here
Edition 1, which ran from Thursday 10 December 2020 – Saturday 12 December 2020 to audiences online and in person, saw the theatre reopen for the first time since its closure in March. The online version of Edition 1 is available to watch until 4pm Saturday 20 December here.
