The acclaimed Paine’s Plough theatre company will present a London season in Brixton in August.
The company’s Roundabout touring season normally premieres new works at the Edinburgh Festival.
But this year it is touring the UK and will be in Brixton’s Slade Gardens from 19 to 29 August in the company’s award-winning portable in-the-round auditorium.
Tickets for Roundabout: Brixton are on sale now via the Paines Plough website.
This year’s Roundabout programme – A Promise to 2021 – includes four world premieres.
The 10-day Roundabout:Brixton programme will also feature performances from visiting companies and artists.
These include:
Rashdash, a cabaret about love, art and legacy. Who really suffers for our great art? (14+)
Nouveau Riche with Caste-ing, a beatbox-musical depicting professional and emotional issues faced by Black women actors.
Bonnie and the Bonnettes, with Drag Me to Love, featuring a 14-year-old drag queen in Doncaster in 2009. (16+)
Sukh Ojla, with Life Sucks, exploring mental health, identity, and living a double life. (16+)
Sindhu Vee, with an evening of brilliant stand-ups (line-up to be announced).
Roundabout in Brixton will be in partnership with Lambeth ELEVATE and will host a series of community events as well as Paines Plough’s Big and Loud activity programme for young people in connection with REALLY BIG AND REALLY LOUD from 23 to 27 August.
Food banks
Paines Plough plans to partner with food banks across the Roundabout tour to support people most affected by the pandemic.
It also plans to work with young people to deliver an engagement programme that encourages them to use their voices after more than a year away from friends and peers.
The touring company, established in 1974, is dedicated to developing and producing exceptional writing and has produced more than 200 new works by world renowned playwrights.
It entertains more than 30,000 people eaxch year from Cornwall to the Orkney Islands.
Roundabout 2021 premieres
HUNGRY by Chris Bush, an award-winning playwright, lyricist and theatre-maker, directed by Katie Posner, is about food, love, class and grief in a world where there’s little left to savour.
Age guidance: 12+. Running time: 70 minutes.
BLACK LOVE, with book and lyrics by Chinonyerem Odimba and music by Ben and Max Ringham, introduces sister and brother Aurora and Orion who look after each other in their small London flat filled with the memories of their parents’ Black Love. It uses real-life stories, imagined worlds and new songs inspired by R&B.
Age guidance: 12+. Running time: 80 minutes.
REALLY BIG AND REALLY LOUD, a show for all the family by award-winning playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell, directed by Katie Posner, is the story of Charli. It’s about losing your voice and going on a big adventure to find it again. It features a rageful rhino, a very helpful fly called Stephen and some really good songs about chips.
Age guidance: 5+. Running time: 60 minutes.
MAY QUEEN By Frankie Meredith, directed by Balisha Karra, is set on May Day in Coventry in 2022. 16-year-old Leigh has been chosen as May Queen. An encounter during the festivities will change her life.
Age guidance: 12+. Running time: 70 minutes.
As well as Brixton, Roundabout will visit Coventry, Newcastle, Salford, Ramsgate, Doncaster, Lincoln and Poole in Dorset.
