Dark new play Crocodiles is set to have its world premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre on Wednesday 1st October.
Written by Lee Mattinson (who has story-lined for Coronation Street as well as having written for a host of other productions including the Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre, The National Theatre, Paines Plough and BBC 3), Crocodiles is set in a sleepy seaside town where this fierce Northern fable exposes a strange world where strange things are normal and normal things are very strange!
Cornelia Glass is busy spinning yarn. Witches are burning in the town centre. Crocodiles lurk in the shallows. Boys who go to the big city are skinned alive by tramps.
Cornelia’s older son, Rudolph, must give up Punch and Judy to work in the local Smarties-tubes factory. His wife Matilda is secretly penning her first romantic novel. And baby grand-daughter Lucy can see into the future.
But when Vincent Glass comes home from his glitzy TV job in the city, the stories that once knit the family together are in danger of smashing them to smithereens.
Inaugral winner of the Royal Exchange Theatre Hodgkiss Award, Ng Choon Ping, directs the production in collaboration with Sarah Beaton who is responsible for design.
The Hodgkiss Award is a new and unique scheme in the north that celebrates the inimitable collaboration between a writer and director. It offers a theatre maker of outstanding promise the chance to direct a new piece of work – by a writer of their choice – in a production fully supported by the Royal Exchange Theatre.
The cast includes James Atherton (best known for his TV role as Will Savage in Hollyoaks); Sarah Gordy (whose TV credits include playing Pamela Holland in two series of Upstairs, Downstairs); Melanie Hill (whose recent TV work includes Waterloo Road and who is best known as Avaline in BBC comedy Bread) and Kevin Wathen (whose recent theatre work includes a West End production of Billy Elliott and whose TV credits include Inspector George Gently).
The production will also feature video projections designed by Gillian Tan, with lighting by Dominic Kennedy and sound by Matthew Haskins.
The Royal Exchange Theatre presents
CROCODILES
By Lee Mattinson
Directed by Ng Choon Ping
Designed by Sarah Beaton
The Studio, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
Wednesday 1 October – Saturday 18 October
Performance Times: Monday – Saturday, 7.30pm (no evening performance on Tuesday 7 October)
Matinees: Thursday & Saturday, 2.30pm (no matinee on Thursday 2 October)
Age Guidance: 16 plus (contains strong language and adult content)
Ticket Prices: £12 / £10 concessions
Box Office: 0161 833 9833.
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