• Rufus Hound and Samuel West to star in a comedy by Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer

• Other season highlights include theatre based on stereotype-defying Anime and novel, and a show asking what would happen if we let an app make our life choices

• Jonathan Maitland pens a new drama about Princess Diana’s interview with Martin Bashir  

• Other shows include a drama about rugby and mental health, and a migration story with the roles reversed

As it starts its 10th anniversary celebrations, Park Theatre is delighted to announce its Summer / Autumn 2023 season. The season that takes audiences from mental health in sport to life choices that are app controlled, from a dystopian Europe to an Icelandic avalanche in a comedy by Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer, and from theatre based on Anime to an exploration of that Princess Diana nterview.

The season begins in Park90 with Bones (5 – 22 July), a new writing, physical theatre production about rugby that tackles mental health. Ed is used to getting injured playing rugby, but he's never faced an injury that he couldn't see before. When his mental health makes it feel like he's taking on an entire rugby team by himself, will his teammates stand by his side or remain seated on the side-line?  

Moving from mental health to intellectual choices, in Park200 new play Disruption (7 July – 5 Aug) asks what happens if we let an app make our life choices in a timely and insightful exploration of our tech obsessed world by Andrew Stein. After tremendous Silicon Valley success and a big exit, Nick presents his three best friends with his next big idea: an algorithm that is more complex than the human brain and promises to guide them through big life decisions better and more effectively than they can guide themselves. In an era where every aspect of human life has been documented with data and disrupted by technology, do computers know us better than we know ourselves? And even if they do, should we listen? 

Next in Park200, The Garden of Words (10 Aug – 9 Sep) is a global premiere based on the stereotype-defying Anime and novel by Makoto Shinkai. Takao and Yukari are escaping. Whilst seeking solace in a Japanese garden, an out-of-step woman and an offbeat teenager meet by chance. Social misfits with a shared sense of loneliness, the unlikely pair bond over classical poetry, shoemaking and bad cooking. But the heartfelt companionship that could save them might also ruin them…

From Japan to Iceland, It’s Headed Straight Towards Us (13 Sep – 20 Oct) sees actor-comedians Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer join forces in a comedy about two actors stuck in a trailer on the side of a volcano. The glacier is melting, the volcano is active. Bitter rivalries emerge between fussy ‘bit part’ actor Hugh Delavois (Samuel West) and fading Hollywood bad boy Gary Savage (Rufus Hound), going back to their time at college together, as the film they are meant to be working on collapses around them and the trailer they are in begins to slip. 

As the Park200 stage hosts an Icelandic avalanche, the Park90 stage sees a Europe that has already faced catastrophe in Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea (13 – 30 Sep) by Italian theatre-maker Emanuele Aldrovandi, a darkly comic, absurdist, and political piece offers us a story of migration where the roles are reversed. It’s the near future and Europe has failed. A domino effect of nationalist, isolationist policies has left the continent’s economies on the brink of collapse, and the very individuals who wanted to close its borders to immigrants are forced to flee across the seas. In a claustrophobic shipping container, three unnamed travellers place their lives at the mercy of a mysterious people-smuggler.

Finally, moving into autumn, The Interview (27 Oct – 25 Nov) by Jonathan Maitland and presented by Original Theatre is about the interview between Princess Diana and Martin Bashir that shocked the world. It was watched by hundreds of millions worldwide. But now, it is said, the interview has no legitimacy. Is it right that the way it came about has overshadowed what it was meant to be? The Interview poses tough questions: What can we justify in the pursuit of truth? Can we trust our great institutions? And are we ever, really, in control of our own narrative…our legacy? 

Artistic director Jez Bond said, “As our 10th Birthday approaches I’m delighted to announce our next season; six new extraordinary pieces of theatre. From the political to the purely comic, the array of shows look back, forward and directly at the present. With a mixture of new and familiar faces gracing the stage, we’re thrilled to open our doors to all."

Listing:

Bones I 5 – 22 July

Disruption I 7 July – 5 Aug

The Garden of Words I 10 Aug – 9 Sep

It’s Headed Straight Towards Us I 13 Sep – 20 Oct

Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea I 13 – 30 Sep

The Interview 27 Oct – 25 Nov