In How To Build a Better Tulip, loosely based on Alexandre Dumas’ The Black Tulip, two rival English plant scientists battle with botany in a Lincolnshire greenhouse an attempt to create a black tulip.
With their 17th century Dutch ancestors breathing down their necks and four hundred year’s worth of prize money at stake, How To Build A Better Tulip is a witty and fast-paced comedy building absurdity onto absurdity.
As government intelligence services and a police sergeant sniffing out eco-terrorists threaten to stymie their horticultural endeavours, will they produce the elusive tulip? Or merely murder each other with a shovel?
Writer and director Mark R Giesser said, “As a writer of historical fiction, I loved Dumas’ story about one man’s quest to bring a thing of rarest beauty into a world of conflict and political turmoil. But Dumas’ hero also did it for the money, and his quest echoed the Dutch tulip mania of 1637, one of history’s notorious mass follies. So I thought there were comic possibilities in the novel that might translate into a modern setting on stage. My wife, Jody, had trained as a university botanist in America under a forceful Southern belle professor, and her recollections of her mentor gave me the idea for how to transform the story. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to bring the play to a new audience at The Gatehouse!”
The cast will comprise Jill Greenacre, Beth Burrows, Christopher Killik, Bryony Tebbutt and Richard Lynson
Alces Productions’ previous shows at Upstairs at the Gatehouse include Sirens of the Silver Screen, Strike Up the Band, Once Upon a Mattress, Call Me Madam, and Luck Be A Lady. They previously staged How To Build A Better Tulip at the Tabard Theatre in 2014.
How To Build a Better Tulip is at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, 2 – 20 November 2022.
