Artistic Directors of Paines Plough, Charlotte Bennett and Katie Posner have announced the UK tour dates for Roundabout 2021, as part of this year’s programme A Promise to 2021.
The pop-up venue, which usually premieres its work at Summerhall as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe, has announced an alternate plan for this year. The venue will premiere its four shows in rep as part of Belgrade Theatre’s Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 from 27 July to 8 August, before touring to Northern Stage in Newcastle and then heading to South London, popping up in Slade Gardens, Brixton from 19 to 29 August.
Tickets for Roundabout: Brixton are now on sale via the Paines Plough website. The award-winning, portable, in-the-round auditorium will then tour across the UK to cities including Salford, Ramsgate, Doncaster, Lincoln and Bournemouth throughout the autumn.
The line-up of four world premieres includes a new musical by Chinonyerem Odimba (Princess & The Hustler, Medea) – BLACK LOVE with music by Ben and Max Ringham, which will be co-directed by Chinonyerem Odimba and Katie Posner, in Association with tiata fahodzi.
This will play in rep with Chris Bush’s (Steel, The Changing Room) new play HUNGRY, a play about food, love, class and grief in a world where there’s little left to savour, and Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s (Fury, Epic Love and Pop Songs) new family show REALLY BIG AND REALLY LOUD, both directed by Katie Posner.
Paines Plough’s 2019 Playwright Fellow Frankie Meredith will also present MAY QUEEN – a coming-of-age story about a young woman from Coventry on a quest to find her place in her city and in the world, directed by 2021 Co-Artistic Director of Belgrade Theatre Balisha Karra.
Balisha was Paines Plough’s Trainee Director in 2018. The season will be part of Belgrade Theatre’s Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 Programme.
BLACK LOVE, HUNGRY and REALLY BIG AND REALLY LOUD will be performed in rep by Nathan Queeley-Dennis (Doctors BBC), Leah St Luce (Beautiful UK TOUR), Eleanor Sutton (Amadeus NATIONAL THEATRE), with Yasmin Dawes (Underwater Love FUTURE THEATRE TOUR) joining as the central character in MAY QUEEN.
The 10-day Roundabout:Brixton programme will also include performances from visiting companies and artists including Rashdash, Nouveau Riche, Bonnie and the Bonnettes, Sukh Ojla and Sindhu Vee.
Roundabout lands in Brixton in partnership with Lambeth ELEVATE and will host a series of community events and as well as Paines Plough’s big and loud activity programme for young people in connection with REALLY BIG AND REALLY LOUD 23 – 27 August.
Paines Plough are planning to partner with food banks across the Roundabout tour to support those most affected by the pandemic and, alongside family show REALLY BIG AND REALLY LOUD by Phoebe Eclair-Powell, they plan to work with young people across the country to deliver an engagement programme that encourages them to use their voices after over a year kept away from their friends and peers.
Roundabout is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and has been additionally supported by the Theatre’s Trust. The Brixton Season is supported by the London Borough of Lambeth through #LambethELEVATE.
