First look at production photography from What’s In A Name? has been released, featuring Joe Thomas (The Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat), Bo Poraj (Miranda, Musketeers), Laura Patch (Afterlife, Star Stories), Summer Strallen (Top Hat, Young Frankenstein) and Alex Gaumond (Company, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Matilda).
Hilariously capturing a particularly awkward family dinner party, the witty and razor-sharp production is now playing at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. The production then hits the road, visiting Glasgow, York, Aylesbury, Cambridge, Windsor, Richmond and Southampton.
First opening to critical acclaim at the Birmingham REP in 2017, the comic masterpiece is adapted and directed by Jeremy Sams from the award-winning French film and stage sensation, Le Prènom, by Matthew Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière.
Father-to-be Vincent and his partner Anna are invited to dinner by his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Peter. They are joined by childhood friend Carl for a mature and sophisticated gathering.
The meal is lovingly prepared, and wine carefully selected. The friends are prepared for the usual humorous exchanges they’ve come to expect.
But tonight, a startling revelation about the name chosen for Vincent’s and Anna’s expected child becomes the catalyst for a destructive argument which spirals hysterically out of control. Tonight no one is holding back! Egos, childish resentment and unspoken feelings are relentlessly and hilariously exposed for the first time.
What’s In A Name? is written by Matthew Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière with adaptation, translation and direction by Jeremy Sams. Set will be designed by Francis O’Connor and lighting design is by Rick Fisher.
