The King's Head young writers, directors and producers present two one-act plays:

'The Damage That We Do' by Caroline Kerlogue
Directed by Anthony Coleridge
&
'Calling' by Deborah Espect
Directed by William Edelsten

This highly original production pokes bedtime stories in the eye and blows a rude raspberry in the face of public decency! Based on nursery rhymes and their characters, detectives Wee Willie Winkie and Goldilocks investigate Humpty Dumpty’s death in an orgy of deliciously adult songs, catchy lyrics and witty dialogue.

Music and lyrics by Lauren Hillier & Ryan Carey-Hills

Quiet, private Little Voice sings as sweetly as the divas in her father's record collection - Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey, Billie Holiday… Little Voice can do them all.

When her mother's flash new man Ray Say hears her sing he can't believe his luck, thinking he has finally found the meal ticket he has been looking for… but will Little Voice give in to his schemes?

A poignant and funny love story The Rise and Fall of Little Voice was a huge hit in the West End and on Broadway and as a movie (starring Jane Horrocks, Ewan McGregor, Michael Caine and Brenda Blethyn) achieved worldwide acclaim and a number of Oscar nominations.

This first major West End revival of Jim Cartwright’s multi award-winning play will star X FACTOR songbird Diana Vickers and will play, for only a limited season, at the Vaudeville Theatre.

Following the Agatha Christie Theatre Company’s hugely successful productions of The Hollow, The Unexpected Guest and And Then There Were None, the fourth instalment in the highly acclaimed series promises to be the most intriguing and entertaining yet.

When Clarissa discovers a dead body in her drawing-room, she tries to dispose of it before her Foreign Office diplomat husband returns home, with a government VIP guest in tow.

Equipped with an over-active imagination, Clarissa finds real life murder a little too hard to handle! And, having persuaded her houseguests to help her, it soon becomes apparent that the dead man was not unknown to everyone amongst them.

As the web of deceit starts to unravel, Clarissa pulls her friends into a desperate race to unveil the murderer and solve the mystery before the police discover the felony and arrest her as their prime suspect!

Presented by the official Agatha Christie Theatre Company, the all-star cast features Denis Lill (The Royal, Survivors, Outside Edge) Melanie Gutteridge best known for her role as PC Emma Keane in The Bill, Catherine Shipton famous for her long-standing and highly acclaimed role as Duffy in Casualty, Ben Nealon (Soldier Soldier), Bruce Montague (Butterflies) and Mark Wynter who has delighted audiences with his all round talents from pop career to TV, film and stage.

David Harewood is best known to theatregoers for his leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre (Othello, His Dark Materials) and elsewhere, while his many screen credits include Blood Diamond, Mad Dogs and Englishmen and forthcoming BBC drama Mrs Mandela, in which he plays Nelson Mandela. He is currently starring as another giant of the 20th century, Martin Luther King, in the premiere of Katori Hall's The Mountaintop at Battersea's Theatre503.

Martin Luther King made a number of fantastic speeches - every time I hear “I have a dream” I get tingles down my spine. But his second most famous piece of oratory is his “I've been to the mountaintop” speech, which he made in Memphis the night before he was assassinated. During my research I found out that he went completely off message that night - there was a bomb threat where he was speaking which prompted him to talk at length about his own death. Many of his aides were quite shocked to hear the amount of detail he was going into about his own mortality. And the very next day he was shot, which is astonishing. Katori Hall wrote The Mountaintop largely as an homage to her mother, who was supposed to go along that night, but because of the bomb threat she stayed at home - something she has regretted ever since.
The play is set in King's motel room on the night before his assassination, where he's visited by a mysterious character who forces him to confront his mortality, his legacy and the future of his people. It beautifully negotiates his faults and failings, exposing the fact that he was just an ordinary man. And it takes us back to the period beautifully - I was astonished at how much hatred King had to absorb. As soon as I read it I felt I just had to do it.
The only downside of the exercise is that we only had a three week rehearsal period. There's so much material out there on King but I had to make fairly quick decisions regarding my portrayal. We're used to seeing him as an icon, the leader of the civil rights movement, but in the information I've come across he was also a man of great humour, he was a devoted father although he was quite renowned for his promiscuity, and when he was examined during his post-mortem the doctor found that he had the heart of a 60-year-old. I think that was partly because of the stress he underwent. He was a man who felt a strong sense of duty to his people but also understood that it wasn't just his race to run. These are all elements that I've tried to incorporate.
Earlier in the year I was filming Mrs Mandela for the BBC, in which I play Nelson Mandela, another great icon. I had much more time to build up the character of Mandela, although I had a greater knowledge of the civil rights movement already so I suppose I had a head start with King. There are big differences creating a character for TV and for theatre – I suppose you need to be more detailed on film, whereas you have more creative licence on stage. The Mountaintop is great in this regard, going from Greek tragedy to French farce to modern realism; it really gives you the opportunity to play a range of genres in the same evening.
My co-star Lorraine Burroughs has been fantastic - she's extremely hard-working and talented and it's been great fun so far. But like I say, we didn't have much time to do the groundwork so we've had to work at an incredible pace over a very intensive period. I certainly hope the play will have more life beyond this run - I'd hate to work so hard and then have to kiss it goodbye!

by David Hare
 A dramatist seeks to understand the financial crisis.
In retrospect is it fair to say that the idea that banks could manage risk was a total illusion?

On 15 September 2008, capitalism came to a grinding halt. As sub-prime mortgages and toxic securities continued to dominate the headlines, this spring the National Theatre asked David Hare to write an urgent and immediate work to be staged this autumn that sought to find out what had happened, and why.

Capitalism works when greed and fear are in the correct balance. This time they got out of balance. Too much greed, not enough fear.

Meeting with many of the key players from the financial world, David Hare, author of The Permanent Way and Stuff Happens, has created The Power of Yes: a compelling narrative, as enlightening as it is entertaining.

It’s like a ship which you’re being told is in apple-pie order, the decks are cleaned, the metal is burnished, the only thing nobody mentions: it’s being driven at full speed towards an iceberg.
Not so much a play as a jaw-dropping account of how, as the banks went bust, capitalism was replaced by a socialism that bailed out the rich alone.

based on a novel by Terry Pratchett
adapted by Mark Ravenhill
A parallel world, 1860. Two teenagers thrown together by a tsunami that has destroyed Mau’s village and left Daphne shipwrecked on his South Pacific island, thousands of miles from home. One wears next to nothing, the other a long white dress; neither speaks the other’s language; somehow they must learn to survive. As starving refugees gather, Daphne delivers a baby, milks a pig, brews beer and does battle with a mutineer. Mau fights cannibal Raiders, discovers the world is round and questions the reality of his tribe’s fiercely patriarchal gods. Together they come of age, overseen by a foul-mouthed parrot, as they discard old doctrine to forge a new Nation.
Oh I think you think I want to eat you but – no no no – I am offering you afternoon tea – over there – in one hour. 
Following His Dark Materials, Coram Boy and War Horse, the National stages Mark Ravenhill’s exhilarating adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s latest witty and challenging adventure story.
There’s no demons, no gods. Just me. And the waves and the sun and birth and death. And there’s no reason for anything. I’m sorry: that’s just the way it seems to me.
Suitable for 10yrs+

By Bertolt Brecht
in a translation by Tony Kushner
Mother Courage, one of the most astonishing stage creations of the twentieth century, drags her cart across the battlefields, profiteering from a war that destroys her children, one by one
It isn’t easy, starting a war, but nothing worthwhile is easy. And once you’re in, you’re hooked like a gambler, you can’t afford to walk away from the crapshoot once you’re deep into it.
Fiona Shaw returns to the National to take the title role in Tony Kushner’s inventive and vigorous translation of Bertolt Brecht’s uncompromising masterpiece. New live music by Duke Special and his band infuses this wildfire production from the team whose many international credits include Happy Days and Medea.

Miss Julie by Auust Strindberg
Produced by Nameless Theatre

Miss Julie - Mariam Bell
Jean - Hugh O'Shea
Christine - Gabriella Schmidt

Director - James Farrell
Ass. Director - Neil Smith

When Miss Julie, the daughter of a count, sleeps with her father's valet, Jean, the resulting conflict between sexual passion and social position leads the pair to tragedy.

From the company who brought us a midnight performance of Hamlet and their unique 'Round 1' evening for new writing The Factory return to The Kings Head with:

The Seagull Project directed by Tim Carroll
 
This is a step further on from the Hamlet Project.

Where Hamlet was a different cast every night, each performance of The Seagull will feature not only a different cast but a different text. We are not working from any one translation of Chekhov's play; rather, working from all of them, we are preparing to create a new version every night, as we speak. In true Factory style, each performance will be unrepeatable; perhaps, sometimes, it will be unforgettable. Who knows?