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Ashley Cook for Troupe in association with Park Theatre presents the World Premiere of
The Forsyte Saga - Parts 1 and 2
WRITER | JOHN GALSWORTHY
ADAPTER | SHAUN MCKENNA
ADAPTER | LIN COGHLAN
DIRECTOR | JOSH ROCHE
John Galsworthy | Writer
John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was educated at Harrow and studied law at New College, Oxford. He travelled widely and at the age of twenty-eight began to write, at first for his own amusement. His first stories were published under the pseudonym John Sinjohn and later were withdrawn. He considered The Island Pharisees (1904) his first important work. The Man of Property (1906) began the novel sequence known as The Forsyte Saga, by which Galsworthy is chiefly remembered. Galsworthy did not immediately continue it; fifteen years and with them the First World War intervened until he resumed work on the history of the Forsytes with In Chancery (1920) and To Let (1921). Meanwhile he had written a considerable number of novels, short stories, and plays. The story of the Forsyte family after the war was continued in The White Monkey (1924), The Silver Spoon (1926), and Swan Song (1928), and its two interludes A Silent Wooing and Passersby (1927) collected in A Modern Comedy (1929). To these should be added On Forsyte Change (1930), a collection of short stories. Galsworthy’s other novels include The Country House (1907), The Patrician (1911) and The Freelands (1915). His plays often took up specific social grievances such as the double standard of justice as applied to the upper and lower classes in The Silver Box (1906) and the confrontation of capital and labour in Strife (1909). Justice (1910), his most famous play, led to a prison reform in England. Galsworthy’s reaction to the First World War found its expression in The Mob (1914), in which the voice of a statesman is drowned in the madness of the war-hungry masses; and in enmity of the two families of The Skin Game (1920). A television serial of The Forsyte Saga by the BBC achieved immense popularity in Great Britain in 1967 and later in many other nations, especially the United States. It was again serialised by ITV in 2002. Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan adapted the novels for BBC Radio 4 in 2016 under the title The Forsytes. John Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932 and died the following year.
Shaun McKenna | Adapter
Theatre includes The Lord of the Rings for which he won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Musical and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Musical (Watermill Theatre, Newbury, Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto), The Paradine Case, Wish You Were Dead, Looking Good Dead, The House on Cold Hill, The Perfect Murder, Dead Simple and Not Dead Enough (National Tours), The Return of Peter Pan (Theater Regensburg), Maddie (New York Theater Festival and Lyric Theatre), Rocky Road (Jermyn Street Theatre), Boy on the Roof (Ted Shawn Theatre, Becket), Are You As Nervous As I Am? (Greenwich Theatre), Ladies In Lavender for which he won a BroadwayWorld UK Award for Best Regional Play (Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton and National Tour), Lautrec (Shaftesbury Theatre), Last Dance (York Theatre, New York City), Heidi and Heidi and Johanna for which he was nominated for a Prix Walo Award (Walenstadt), Ben Hur Live (O2 Arena), La Cava (Victoria Palace Theatre and Piccadilly Theatre), Only You Can Save Mankind (Pleasance Edinburgh), Murder Mystery Musical (George Square Theatre, Edinburgh), Ruling Passions, How Green Was My Valley and To Serve Them All My Days (Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton) and Fever (Old Red Lion Theatre).
Film and television includes The Crooked Man, Like Father Like Son, The Cuckoo, Heartbeat and Great West End Theatres.
Radio includes Eleanor Rising, Home Front for which he won a BBC Audio Drama Award, China Towns, The Forsytes, The Complete Smiley, Joseph Andrews Remixed, Marnie, East of Eden, Meeting Jack, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Brother Dusty Feet, Me and Little Boots and Smiles of a Summer Night.
Lin Coghlan | Adapter
Theatre includes Kingfisher Blue (Bush Theatre), Apache Tears for which she won the Peggy Ramsay Award (Clean Break), Mercy and Waking (Soho Theatre), The Miracle (National Theatre), Bretevski Street (Theatre Centre) and The Night Garden (National Theatre Studio and Northcott Theatre, Exeter).
Film and television includes First Communion Day for which she won the Dennis Potter Play of the Year Award, Electric Frank for which she won a Leopard of Tomorrow Award at Toronto Film Festival, Some Dogs Bite for which she won the Audience Award at Nantes Film Festival and Patrick’s Planet.
Radio includes Tales of the City, Les Miserables, The Country Girls, Clayhanger, The Fortunes of War, Mansfield Park, The Cazelets, Ethan Frome, The Forsytes, The Misunderstanding and North and South.
Josh Roche | Director
Theatre includes My Name is Rachel Corrie for which he won the JMK Award (The Young Vic), Pressure (Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto), Home (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), World Shakespeare Conference Opening Ceremony (Royal Shakespeare Company), Orlando (59E59 Theaters, New York City), Radio (Arcola Theatre), It's a Motherf**king Pleasure for which he won an Underbelly Untapped Award (Soho Theatre and Underbelly Edinburgh), Winky (Soho Theatre), No Particular Order (Theatre503), Pennyroyal for which he was nominated for a BroadwayWorld UK Award for Best Director, Magnificence and A Third (Finborough Theatre), I Feel Fine, Specie and Uninvited (New Diorama Theatre), Plastic (Old Red Lion Theatre and Mercury Theatre, Colchester) and This Must Be The Place (VAULT Festival).
Work as Associate and Assistant Director includes Dr Faustus and The Alchemist (Royal Shakespeare Company at The Barbican Theatre), Death of a Salesman (Royal Shakespeare Company at Noel Coward Theatre), The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe, National and International Tours), Doctor Scroggy's War (Shakespeare's Globe), Farinelli and the King (Duke of York's Theatre), Pressure (Ambassadors Theatre and National Tour), Eternal Love (English Touring Theatre), Blink (Soho Theatre, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 59E59 Theaters, New York City and Jagriti Theatre, Bangalore) and The Boy Who Fell Into A Book and Utopia (Soho Theatre).