November to February 2010-2011 | A season of rediscovered plays

OH TO BE IN ENGLAND

by David Pinner

Sundays and Mondays, 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24 January 2011

The World Premiere

Part of RediscoveriesUK – A three month season of rediscovered plays by writers from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

“If I was French, it would be simple; I'd commit crime passionel in a riot of garlic and vin ordinaire. And if I was German, I'd invoke the phantom of the Fuhrer and get hacking. In America, the husband generally shoots the family first, then takes a dozen high-powered rifles up some bell tower and blasts away at the town. But I knew the English way was the only way, God help me.You make a bloody great speech - and then you have a stiff drink.”

Like Pinner's contemporaneous 1973 Stalin play The Teddy Bears' Picnic, Oh, To Be In England was unproduceable at the time of its writing because of its unapologetic skewering of political extremism in the UK. Unlike The Teddy Bears' Picnic, which finally ran in 1990 to press acclaim, Oh, To Be In England has remained lost. After thirty-five years, it is now receiving its world premiere after thirty five years.

Frighteningly prescient, and tragically current, Oh, To Be In England is a dark comedy examining what it means to live in an ex-empire in economic free-fall, and the political and personal extremism that results when all other belief is lost. A middle-aged Englishman, bred to believe in his innate superiority as a birthright of class, race, and gender, loses his job in the City. Left floundering impotently in a world that is no longer cricket, his family, security, and sanity follow close behind.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Playwright David Pinner trained at RADA as an actor, and has acted in many stage and television plays. His plays produced in London include Fanghorn starring Glenda Jackson (Fortune Theatre), Lucifer's Fair (Arts Theatre), The Potsdam Quartet (Lyric Hammersmith, and the Lion Theatre, New York),The Last Englishmen (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond) with Kate O’Mara, Cartoon, Shakebag and An Evening with the G.L.C. (Soho Poly), Sins of the Mother (Grace Theatre) and Lenin in Love (New End Theatre) with James Faulkner and Frances Cuka. Other plays include Dickon (Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch), The Drums of Snow and Lightning at a Funeral (Stanford Repertory Theatre, California), Hereward the Wake (Key Theatre, Peterborough), Screwball (Theatre Royal, Plymouth), The Teddy Bears' Picnic (Gateway Theatre, Chester) with Philip Madoc as Stalin, Revelations (Roberts Theatre, Iowa), Skin Deep (Gateway Theatre, Chester), All Hallows' Eve (Academy of Performing Arts, Hong Kong) and Midsummer (Brehmer Theatre, Hamilton, USA). Dickon, Fanghorn and The Drums of Snow are published by Penguin; The Stalin Trilogy – Lenin in Love, The Teddy Bears' Picnic and The Potsdam Quartet, The Seasons’ Quartet – Midsummer, Lady Day, Revelations and All Hallow's Eve, and Three Power Plays – The Drums of Snow, Richelieu and Prince of Traitors, are published by Oberon Books. His novel With my Body is published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson/Corgi, There'll Always be an England by Anthony Blonde. The cult movie, The Wicker Man is based on his novel, Ritual (Hutchinson/Corgi), and Ritual is to be re-published by Finders Keepers next April.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Director Mel Cook returns to the Finborough Theatre following her sell-out run of William Saroyan’s The Beautiful People (2008). Mel trained at RADA and Birkbeck, and is Resident Director of BoomBoom Club/33events, Associate Director of SPID, and Associate Artist of Coney. Mel is an experiential theatre maker working in site-specific, cross-media, devised, improvised, and interactive theatre, as well as creating live art and pervasive games. Mel has been a finalist for the JMK, ITV/C4, Arches, Bankside, and Leverhulme directing awards, and has assisted Gregory Doran and Anthony Clark. Recent productions include First Impressions (Theatre Royal, Margate), Midnight Labyrinth (site-specific in Madrid), Superhuman (SPID Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Courtyard), In Flight (Bridewell Theatre), Echo (site-specific in Meanwhile Gardens), and Explore (Tabernacle). Mel has created interactive work for National Theatre Studio, Glastonbury, Latitude, Nokia, Beefeater, Globe Theatre, Gideon Reeling, V & A, Hide & Seek and LIFT, and developed site-sympathetic theatre for BAC, Kensington and Chelsea, Shunt Vaults, Honolulu Theatre, and several museums, parks, fields, and derelict buildings.

ABOUT THE CAST

The cast includes Peter Broome, Jonathan Christie, Daniel Fraser, Natalie Lesser and Charlotte Thornton.

Peter Broome’s credits include Unsent Letters (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Murder Game (Cambridge Theatre), Feast of Snails (Lyric Theatre), King Lear and The Provoked Wife (The Peter Hall Company), As Is, Macbeth, Dangerous Liaisons and Prick Up Your Ears (Actor’s Temple) and Jekyll and Hyde (Il Palchetto Stage).

Jonathan Christie’s credits include First Impressions (Theatre Royal Margate), Madness in Valencia (Trafalgar Studios), My Dad’s a Birdman (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Miss Julie (Albany Theatre), Thinking Aloud (ICA), My Favorite Year, Black Comedy, Certain Young Men, Tales From Ovid, Bacchae, The Tempest and Company (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), and rehearsed readings of What You’re Really Missing (Soho Theatre) and Monsters (Leicester Square Theatre).

Daniel Fraser’s credits while training include Romeo and Juliet, Victory: Choices in Reaction, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Keeping the Faith.

Natalie Lesser’s credits include The Duchess of Malfi, Love and Understanding (The Courtyard) and Hecuba (New Diorama Theatre).

Charlotte Thornton’s credits include After the Dance (National Theatre), Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Vaudeville Theatre), In the Club (National Tour), Woodlands (Old Red Lion Theatre), Timon of Athens (White Bear Theatre Club), Take Two (Upstairs at the Gatehouse), Runners - The Return, Macbeth (Edinburgh Festival), Romeo and Juliet (National Tour), Top Girls (MAC), Seven Brides (BAC) and Twelfth Night (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park).

THE PRESS ON DAVID PINNER

“David Pinner’s hybrid of Chekhovian comedy, with Stalin as a Marlovian hero, works superbly.” The Independent on The Teddy Bears’ Picnic

”The Teddy Bears’ Picnic – despite its terrifying theme - is astonishingly funny.” The Daily Telegraph on The Teddy Bears’ Picnic

“David Pinner unmasks Uncle Joe brilliantly.” The Wall Street Journal on The Teddy Bears’ Picnic

“David Pinner’s beautiful play is filled with the most wonderfully unforced humour. The playwright is a recording angel with a mean pen.” Clive Barnes, The New York Post on The Potsdam Quartet

“David Pinner’s ‘Potsdam Quartet’ is a glorious comedy in the circumstances of tragedy.” The Daily Telegraph on The Potsdam Quartet

“The play is stuffed with acerbic wit, ratty-back biting and conflict, and rises gloriously to its theme.” Time Out on The Potsdam Quartet

THE PRESS ON OH TO BE IN ENGLAND

“The Finborough Theatre is currently presenting a succession of neglected or forgotten plays, and since there must be dozens of those to draw upon it is open for business seven days a week.” Jeremy Kingston, The Times

“Oh, To Be In England is a neat addition to the Finborough’s RediscoveriesUK programme as it is a world premiere of a 35 year old play by David Pinner.“ Ian Foster, thereoughttobeclowns

“Darkly comic in tone...Surprisingly effective and engaging in portraying how easily extreme thinking can be fomented in times of hardship.” Ian Foster, thereoughttobeclowns

“This is not a weak and justifiably forgotten play…Some wonderful little moments of dark comedy.” Sans Taste

”A neat performance by Jonathan Christie.” Jeremy Kingston, The Times

“Strongly acted throughout.” Ian Foster, thereoughttobeclowns

“Alison Neighbour’s design seems to flow from the brown corduroy sofa that dominates the living room, most if not all costumes are stunning variations on brown polyester and floral prints and it all fits onto the set of The Potting Shed quite neatly, the action never leaving that one room. Mel Cook’s direction keeps things moving at a sprightly pace and does well to remind us that though this is a 35 year old play, so many of the lessons about the way in which society can fall apart during economic downturns and the allure of extremist thinking in times of hardship are alarmingly relevant even today.” Ian Foster, thereoughttobeclowns

“The Finborough deserves credit for pulling it from the archives for a well-deserved airing.” Sans Taste