The London premiere of a new play by Jack Thorne
Directed by Stephen Keyworth
Designed by Georgia Lowe
Lighting by Tom Richmond
Sound by Dominic Thurgood
Presented by Lifeboat Theatre in association with 5065 Lift and Weaver Hughes Ensemble

Part One: Two Little Boys
One/Norma Bell - Sophie Fletcher
Two/Mary Bell - Elicia Daly

Part Two: Superstar
Lucy - Diana May
Two/Mary Bell - Elicia Daly
Steve - Christopher Daley
Ray - Simon Darwen

[ new year, new plays season ]
30 January – 17 February 2007

This production subsequently transferred to The English Theatre of Bruges from
24 - 29 July 2007, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival at Pleasance Cavern (Venue 33) from 1 - 27 August 2007, and to the West End in a double bill with Jack Thorne's Stacy from 1-27 October 2007 at the Trafalgar Studios, London

Once upon a time, two small girls killed two smaller boys...

Jack Thorne’s expanded and updated new version of Fanny and Faggot delves further into the person behind the name Mary Bell. A huge success in the 5065 Lift at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2004, this London production reunites the director Stephen Keyworth with Elicia Daly who played Mary to critical acclaim.

This ambitious and highly theatrical drama presents a disturbing, funny, and troubled world, and examines two distinct moments in the life of Mary Bell. Using documentation from the court case in 1968 and the imagined events of her escape in 1978, Fanny and Faggot explores Mary’s journey to the brink of horror and her tentative steps back into ‘normal’ life.

Playwright Jack Thorne’s previous work includes When You Cure Me which was produced at the Bush Theatre, directed by Mike Bradwell, last year. He is currently under commission to the Birmingham Rep, The Bush, Company Pictures, Celador Films and Channel 4, including three episodes of the next two series of Shameless.

Director Stephen Keyworth is Artistic Director of the 5065 Lift. On June 21 2005, Flight 5065 filled all 32 capsules of the London Eye with theatre, comedy and music including Damon Albarn, Jo Brand, and the National and Royal Court Theatres. He directed two of the 14 world premieres they commissioned and his own adaptation of Rory Kilalea’s Zimbabwe Boy went on afterwards to be performed on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre. His plays include Mad For It (Royal Exchange Theatre), nominated Best New Play in Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. He returns to the Finborough Theatre after the success of his play Dog Well Done in 2000, Winner of the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Theatre Award and Sunday Telegraph Critics’ Choice.

The script is published by Nick Hern Books. Details here

The Press on Fanny and Faggot in the 5065 Lift
“I’ll be happy if I don’t see performances better than those of Sheena Irving and Elicia Daly in Fanny and Faggot for the rest of the Fringe. It switches from comedy to horror with alarming speed.” Scotland on Sunday
“A real triumph of skill, imagination and dramatic accomplishment. Sheena Irving and Elicia Daly’s brilliant interpretation is entirely convincing and wonderfully communicative of the piece’s inherent complexity.” The Stage
“Thorne has an incredible ear for dialogue”. Perfectly cast, utterly convincing performances.” The Metro

The Press on Jack Thorne’s When You Cure Me
“One of the year's finest pieces of new writing” Evening Standard
“It is simply (and not at all simply) a phenomenally moving portrait of all the hopes, doubts, burdens and frustrations implied in the four bare words of its title.” Ian Shuttleworth, Financial Times ***** Five Stars
“A really poignant, bittersweet comedy…this is a touching, intimate, brave and engrossing drama.” Aleks Sierz, The Stage

The Press on Fanny and Faggot at the Finborough Theatre

Time Out Show of the Week
Time Out Critics' Choice
* * * * Four Stars, The Times
* * * * Four Stars, TIme Out

“Jack Thorne is hot. As of next week two of his plays will be running in London; he has written episodes for the teen TV drama Skins on E4 and for the new series of Channel 4’s hugely acclaimed Shameless. Fanny and Faggot, first seen at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, strikingly demonstrates why the 28-year-old dramatist is attracting so much attention.”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Starkly humorous”
Rachel Halliburton, Time Out

“A darkly gripping achievement, probing the most horrifying extremes of human behaviour with compassion and a rigorous moral and intellectual curiosity.”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“There’s not an ounce of spare flesh on his treatment of a subject that could tempt many playwrights into rhetorical flab.”
Rachel Halliburton, Time Out

“Thorne brilliantly evokes the volatile mix of burgeoning sexuality and the sickening slide into sadism of the girlish game gone wrong, questioning our every assumption about childhood innocence and moral culpability.”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“The dialogue is never less than deftly sketched”.
Rachel Halliburton, Time Out

“Thorne is clearly a playwright with talent and a dramatic finesse...A delicate and sure piece of theatre”
Rhys Williams, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Thorne has a brilliant way with dialogue”
Heather Neill, The Stage

“What also makes the evening such a success is the quality of the acting.”
Richard Woulfe, UK Theatre Net

“Among a superb cast, Elicia Daly’s Mary is unforgettable, an uneasy blend of vulnerability, bravado and savage rage. Like the play as a whole, she is sad, scary, and uncomfortably fascinating.”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Elicia Daly as Mary, both young and older, has been cast perfectly”
Richard Woulfe, UK Theatre Net

“Norma (Sophie Fletcher) and Mary (Elicia Daly), are both convincing children, and hold the attention of the audience with an, at times, almost frantic performance.”
Rhys Williams, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Sophie Fletcher is superb as the more-backward Norma”
Richard Woulfe, UK Theatre Net

“Praise must also be given to Diane May as the sassy Lucy, Christopher Daley as jack-the-lad Steve and Simon Darwen as the more sensitive Ray.”
Richard Woulfe, UK Theatre Net

“Diana May is pitch-perfect as the confident Lucy”
Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times

“Christopher Daley and Simon Darwen are immensely appealing”
Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times

“He is served here by a superlative cast, especially Elicia Daly, Sophie Fletcher and Simon Darwen”
Heather Neill, The Stage

“This excellently acted production can’t be faulted”
Rachel Halliburton, Time Out

“Stephen Keyworth’s production is engrossing”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“I do like the Finborough…Mounting the stairs to the tiny upstairs room reminds me of climbing the ladder to the different lands that would come to the top of the Faraway Tree; there's just no telling whether you'll end up in the Land of Treats, or the Land of Topsy Turvy. It's perfect for the often intense Fringe, with proper use of such a space; the audience feel like the whole of reality is squeezed into this small area”
Rhys Williams, Rogues and Vagabonds

"A bleak design by Georgia Lowe reeking of deprivation and menace.”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“The audience walks into a derelict room with damp, daubed walls and a window whose missing panes make it look as pitiful as a gap-toothed mouth.”
Rachel Halliburton, Time Out

“The Finborough stage…Its confined space allows the audience to become much closely involved in the world of the two girls – so much so that you wonder how well the play would perform in a larger theatre.”
Richard Woulfe, UK Theatre Net

“Before going to see Fanny and Faggot, I was wondering how such a gruesome subject could be treated. I thought it might be too disturbing. It is disturbing but also thought-provoking and, dare I say so, hugely enjoyable.”
Richard Woulfe, UK Theatre Net

The Press on Fanny and Faggot in the West End
"A pin-sharp, brilliant piece of work."  Time Out

“One of the best and most unexpected nights I had at the theatre in ages.” London Lite

“Engrossing and superbly acted.” The Times