Progress Theatre

A Kind of Alaska, by Harold Pinter

A middle-aged woman named Deborah, who has been in a comatose state for thirty years as a result of contracting sleeping sickness, awakes with a mind still that of a sixteen-year-old. She must confront a body which seems to have aged without her prior knowledge or consent. Inspired by an existing work – Oliver Sacks’ study of patients waking from sleeping sickness – this involving drama explores what happens when our self-perception comes face to face with a very different reality.

and

Handbagged, by Moira Buffini

For over a decade Margaret Thatcher met the Queen for a weekly audience. With all her previous Prime Ministers the Queen enjoyed a fairly informal relationship, but with Mrs Thatcher, things were different. Handbagged is an extremely witty look at what the relationship between these two very powerful and private women might have been like, including the influence of two key men: Ronald Reagan and Michael Shea. It provides a wonderful opportunity for four actresses to portray the two formidable women at different stages of their life.

Synopsis
Mark Styler, popular crime writer, arrives at Fairfields, the asylum sheltering the notorious serial-killing subject of his next book – Easterman. But before he can get to the object of his interest, he must first get through Dr. Farquhar, the institution’s head and pioneer of his own quirky methods of treatment. Under Farquhar’s interrogation, and with the furtive and anxious Nurse Plimpton distracting him, Styler finally meets Easterman – but not in the manner in which he expected.

Anthony Horowitz, creator of Foyle’s War and writer of the Stormbreaker novels and the recent Sherlock Holmes release, is at his diabolical best in this brutal psychological thriller, liberally sprinkled with dark humour and violence as it twists, turns and confounds to its startling conclusion.

Performance dates
We are trialling a split performance run for Mindgame – six nights split over two weekends:

May 

10th-12th (Thurs-Sat)
17th-19th (Thurs-Sat)