The multi-award-winning Original Theatre Online presents, live from the Home of Cricket, Shomit Dutta’s darkly comic new play celebrating two great men of theatre and their love for the sport. Live streaming from Lord’s Cricket Ground on Saturday 10 September 2022 at 7pm, Stumped will star Stephen Tompkinson (Brassed Off, Drop The Dead Donkey, DCI Banks, Wild at Heart) as Samuel Beckett and Andrew Lancel (Coronation Street, The Bill) as Harold Pinter. Stumped is directed by Guy Unsworth.
There will be a post-show discussion with renowned theatre critic Michael Billington OBE, former England cricket captain Mike Brearley OBE and novelist and cricket journalist Emma John. This will be broadcast as part of the live stream.
Before Samuel Beckett wrote his seminal works Waiting for Godot and Endgame, he was a cricketer: he is still the only Nobel prize winner to feature in the pages of Wisden as a first-class player. His good friend and fellow Nobel prize-winning author, Harold Pinter, whose best-known works include The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter and The Homecoming, described cricket as ‘the greatest thing that God created’. This brilliantly witty new play is a capricious take on what the friendship between these two great men may have looked like, as well as being a tribute to their writing and their love of the game.
Stumped playwright Shomit Dutta reviews books on cricket and classics. He has been a member of Harold Pinter’s cricket team Gaieties CC for over twenty years, and was captain during Pinter’s final years. He proposed a blue plaque for Samuel Beckett that was unveiled in 2016. Shomit said: “I’m thrilled that my play Stumped will be performed at Lord’s, the Home of Cricket, produced by the wonderful, awarding-winning Original Theatre Company. I can’t wait to see the play brought to life by two highly skilled and talented actors.”
Neil Robinson, Head of Heritage & Collections at Marylebone Cricket Club, owners of Lord’s Cricket Ground, said: “We are delighted to be hosting Original Theatre’s production of Stumped by Shomit Dutta at Lord’s. The play is a witty and wonderful addition to cricket’s vast literary canon and we are sure that the performance will offer tremendous entertainment to a large and enthusiastic crowd of MCC Members and guests, as well as to countless cricket and theatre fans around the world online.”
Alastair Whatley, Artistic Director of Original Theatre Company, said: “I couldn’t be more thrilled to be presenting the world premiere of Shomit’s superb, witty, beautiful, black comedy at Lord’s in September. The advent of digital theatre has allowed us to embrace completely new ways of presenting and sharing plays, making previously exclusive events open to all, and this production represents the chance to create something truly unique and share it widely across the globe. It’s going to be very special.”
The creative team is Director Guy Unsworth, Writer Shomit Dutta, Set and Costume Designer David Woodhead, Sound Designer Dominic Bilkey, Composer Sophie Cotton and Camera Direction by North South.
To book for Stumped live streamed from Lord’s on 10 September 2022 or on demand from 27 September 2022, visit https://originaltheatreonline.com.
