Original Theatre, the Suffolk-based theatre company at the forefront of both the UK’s live touring and digital theatre scenes, will kick off its 20th anniversary year celebrations this November with the screening of Original At Last, a brand new short documentary film about their work, and the announcement of a packed programme for 2025.
Original Theatre’s 20th anniversary season, running from November 2024 for a year, will include:
- The World Premiere screening of Original At Last, a film celebrating 20 years of Original Theatre, marks the start of the anniversary celebrations on Monday 4 November 2024 at 8pm. The documentary, directed by Tristan McShepherd, is being screened at that time at Abbeygate Cinema in Bury St Edmunds, the town where Original staged its first show and where the company is still based today. Original At Lastwill be simultaneously streamed live via Original Theatre’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/live/IFt1xV-c1Rg), followed by the Anniversary Season Launch and Q&A with Original Theatre’s Creative Team. Featuring exclusive interviews with the executive team, as well as creatives and cast members who have worked with the company, Original At Last gives a unique opportunity to delve into the rich history of one of the most dynamic and exciting theatre companies in the UK.
- Atticist, Ellie Keel Productions, and Hampstead Theatre’s current award-nominated production of Bellringers, starring Paul Adeyefa and Luke Rollason, will be released and presented on Original Online this November.Daisy Hall’s comic and deeply moving debut play was a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2024, and was chosen by the Evening Standard as one of ‘the best Edinburgh 2024 shows coming to London this year’. Bellringers, directed by Jessica Lazar, had a critically acclaimed run at Paines Plough’s Roundabout, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024.
- Original Theatre’s 2024 Autumn/Winter tour of Sebastian Faulk’s epic First World War story of love and loss Birdsongwill be extended to include a London run, playing Alexandra Palace Theatre from 27 February to 8 March 2025. Adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and directed by Original Theatre’s Artistic Director Alastair Whatley, this brand-new production marking the 30th anniversary of the international best-selling novel has already sold over 60,000 tickets on its autumn tour and stars Max Bowden, Charlie Russell and James Esler.
- Original Theatre and Reading Rep Theatre present the first London revival in over 25 years of Micheál Mac Liammóir’s legendary play, The Importance of Being Oscar which will transfer from Reading Rep where it played over the summer. Laced with Wilde’s signature wit and wisdom and featuring passages from his best-loved works, this acclaimed show, starring Original Theatre’s Artistic Director Alastair Whatley and directed by Michael Fentiman, offers a rich portrait of the celebrated, complex figure on the 125th anniversary of his death. The venue and dates are to be announced shortly.
- The Croft,a thriller by Ali Milles, will tour in May and June 2025, for the first time since its first tour was postponed in 2020 due to lockdown. Based on a true Highland story, in this bold and haunting play the present interweaves with the past as ancient tales surface and the terrifying truth lurking in the Croft is revealed. Co-produced with Wiltshire Creative and directed by award-winning director Philip Franks, The Croft will set pulses racing, with further details to be announced.
- Murder at Midnight: a brand-new instalment in Torben Betts’ thriller series, following the smash-hit success of Murder in the Dark,this world premiere will open in Autumn 2025. Murder at Midnight blends razor-sharp wit with chilling suspense, proving that even the best-laid plans can unravel spectacularly when the wrong people are in the wrong place… at exactly the wrong time. Further details to be announced.
Since Artistic Director Alastair Whatley founded Original Theatre in 2004, launching the company with its inaugural production of Twelfth Night in his family’s Suffolk garden, the Original Theatre team has mastered the art of theatre production to become a lead player in the UK’s touring theatre scene, working without any national arts funding and navigating stormy waters during lockdowns. The latter led to the company having the impetus to set up Original Online in 2020, resulting in a Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for exceptional theatre-making during that period.
Over the past twenty years, Original Theatre’s shows have toured to over 150 UK venues, as well as playing off-Broadway in New York and on a transatlantic cruise liner. Since the time when theatres reopened after the Covid lockdown, Original Theatre has played to over 260,000 live audience members, and achieved more than 55,000 viewers tuning in from all over the world to Original Online. Original Theatre’s track record of commercial and artistic successes include Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong, Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d and Torben Betts’ Murder in the Dark bringing in record audiences, Jonathan Maitland’s Royal drama The Interview hitting the headlines, John Nicholson and Steve Canny’s The Time Machine – A Comedy receiving a 2024 Olivier Award nomination, and Adrian Lukis’s Being Mr Wickham and Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art, starring Matthew Kelly and Stephen Boxer, becoming award-winning transatlantic hits.
Helmed by Artistic Director Alastair Whatley and Creative Producer Tom Hackney (who joined the company in 2009, as an actor initially), with a core team of seven, working remotely on multiple simultaneous tours and digital productions, Original Theatre is one of the UK’s most prolific theatre companies.
Alastair Whatley, Artistic Director of Original Theatre, said: “As Original Theatre hits 20 years on the road it seemed only right to reflect and look back at the incredible journey the company has been on, from early days in back gardens and cliff tops to playing some of the most prestigious theatres in the country.
“Our 20th anniversary season marries the best of Original, from new writing, to epic adaptations on big stages to punchy revivals in intimate spaces, shows in London, shows in Birmingham, shows in Newcastle, shows in Bury St Edmunds, shows in fact in all four corners of the UK and watched – thanks to Original Online – from all four corners of the world.”
For more information, visit https://originaltheatre.com.
