The New Vic will produce a brand-new stage production of Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves this September. A rare stage adaptation of this fascinating gothic horror, this new production will combine innovative theatrical storytelling with contemporary circus to bring Carter’s work to life for a new generation, from Friday 20 September to Saturday 12 October 2024.
Written at the beginning of the ‘Reclaim The Night’ movement in the 1970s, The Company of Wolves featured in Angela Carter’s ground-breaking second collection of work, The Bloody Chamber – featuring stories written in a Gothic style but with narratives suggested by traditional western European fairy tales. Carter’s work is shaped by a keen, subversive intelligence, concerned with unpicking the mythic roles and structures that underwrite our existence, including the constructs of stereotypical gender roles. She used the forms of fantasy and fairy tales with conscious, radical intent, creating iconic works that still feel relevant in today’s world.
Adapted in 1980 for radio, with a subsequent adaptation in 1984 for film, this new stage production is a rare chance to see this iconic work on stage. Directed by New Vic Artistic Director Theresa Heskins (Olivier-award winning The Worst Witch, West End; Marvellous, @sohoplace) and Upswing Artistic Director and New Vic Associate Director Vicki Dela Amedume MBE, and developed with support from the National Theatre’s Generate Programme, The Company of Wolves will combine spectacular aerial movement and circus disciplines including Chinese Pole, with an evocative Foley soundscape, building on the longstanding partnership between the New Vic and Upswing which has seen critically acclaimed shows such as Dracula in 2015 and Astley’s Astounding Adventures in 2018 and 2023, push the boundaries of the combined theatre-circus artform.
A cast of talented actors and international circus performers will bring Angela Carter’s absorbing tale to the New Vic’s in-the-round stage. Danielle Bird (The Worst Witch, West End; Astley’s Astounding Adventures, New Vic) will play Red alongside Lorna Laidlaw, well known for her roles as Aggie in ITV’s Coronation Street and Mrs Tembe in BBC’s Doctors, as Granny. Sebastian Charles (Life of Pi, West End; The Ocean at the End of the Lane, National Theatre) will play The Gentleman Werewolf; Tanya-Loretta Dee (Ladies Down Under, New Vic, Eastenders, BBC) will play Mother and Dan Parr (Much Ado About Nothing, Sheffield Theatres; The Kitchen Sink, New Vic) will play Hunter.
Completing the company Matthias Camilleri (Malta’s Got Talent finalist), Gabrielle Cook (La VII Nit del Circ, Teatro Principal, Valencia; Girl with a Curl, The Lowry, Circarte and EI TEM), Callum Donald (Circus artist who has performed with Erva Daninha, Remue Ménage and O Ultimo Momento) and Jimmy Wong (Showdown, Chamaeleon Theatre; La Cage, Wild Rice Singapore) will use their circus, acrobatic and aerial skills to create the wolf pack.
New Vic Artistic Director Theresa Heskins said: “Angela Carter’s story of werewolves is impossible to stage. And that’s why, Like Red Riding Hood, I thrill at the idea of this journey into the night, and the danger of what we might find there. How to transform a person into a werewolf and back, without CGI? How to create the creepy chill of a horror story, without special effects?
“We have some amazing talent on our side, including the four international circus artists who will play the wolf pack, racing and leaping through the forest of trees on the New Vic stage in a sort of wild parkour. We have a track record of making audiences jump out of their skin from Dracula, which was in a similar vein. We have Angela Carter’s alluring, unsettling script, which she wrote first as a short story and then as a radio play. And if all that isn’t scary enough, there is a genuinely chilling fact at the heart of the piece: Carter was writing at the very beginning of the Reclaim the Night movement in the late 70s. Here we are nearly half a century later, and this story about the threat and promise of the path through the forest is as significant as it ever was”.
The Company of Wolves takes to the stage at the New Vic from Friday 20 September to Saturday 12 October 2024. For more information, visit newvictheatre.org.uk.
