By TheatreVillage 
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Mercury Theatre, led by Executive Director, Steve Mannix, Executive Producer, Tracey Childs and Creative Director, Ryan McBryde, today announce their programming into 2023.
The season opens with Run Rebel in a co-production between Mercury and Pilot Theatre, the award-winning company that brought Noughts and Crosses and The Bone Sparrow to the Colchester stage. Tessa Walker directs the world première adaption of Manjeet Mann’s Carnegie Medal-winning young adult novel, combining physical theatre and visual effects, and opening 2 March, with previews from 25 February, running until 4 March.
Opening next is a new Mercury Production of They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!, Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation of Dario Fo’s Sotto paga? Non si paga!. Directed by Ryan McBryde, this ferociously funny political farce asks what lengths people will go to when they’re desperate to survive. The production opens on 22 March, with previews from 17 March, and runs until 31 March.
Next, Mercury Creatives alumni Mia Jerome brings a new Mercury Original to the stage in her uplifting children’s show The Instrumentals. As part of a UK tour, the show features soulful music, seventies grooves and innovative puppetry. Drawing on inspiration from the African-Caribbean diaspora, The Instrumentals celebrates the way people hold memories, running in Mercury’s Studio Theatre from 30 May to 3 June.
Derren Brown’s astounding new production Unbelievable is Mercury Theatre’s summer spectacle, directly ahead of the show’s West End run. A cast of seven will bring magic to the Colchester stage, in a show created by the Olivier Award-winning illusionist, whose five-star sell-out production of Showman is currently playing in the West End. Unbelievable begins previews from 28 July and runs until 26 August.
Creative Director Ryan McBryde said today, “At the Mercury, our aim is to provide exhilarating, shared experiences for our community and our 2023 Spring season is a programme of new shows that promise great nights out like no other. We’re tackling the cost-of-living crisis head on with Dario Fo’s side-splitting satire, They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! as we work with Deborah McAndrew to bring the show right up to date with current events. We’re delighted to be launching Pilot Theatre’s electrifying new adaptation of Manjeet Mann’s Carnegie Medal-winning novel Run Rebel as it tours the country with our co-production partners. Colchester audiences will be the first to exclusively access a new work from master illusionist Derren Brown, who will be conjuring up a brand-new show, Unbelievable. And finally, our Studio continues to provide a platform for ground-breaking new work including The Instrumentals, a new Mercury Original family musical full of soulful sounds and seventies grooves written Mia Jerome, one of our alumni from the ground-breaking Mercury Creatives scheme. I can’t wait to share all this work with our audiences, along with a few more surprises up our sleeves in 2023.”
Pilot Theatre presents
with Mercury Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Derby Theatre and York Theatre Royal
Run Rebel
Based on the novel by Manjeet Mann
Director: Tessa Walker
25 February – 4 March 2023
Press night: Thursday 2 March at 7pm
I am strength
I am power
I am courage
I am revolution
I am Amber Rai
Amber is trapped – by her family’s rules, by their expectations, by her own fears. But on the running track she is completely free. As her body speeds up, the world slows down. And the tangled, mixed-up lines in her head get straighter…
It’s time to start a revolution: for her mother, for her sister, for herself.
Tessa Walker directs the world première adaptation of Manjeet Mann’s award-winning novel for young adults, published in 2020.
Manjeet Mann is an actress, playwright, screenwriter and director. Her debut young adult novel Run Rebel was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2021 and won the CILIP Carnegie Shadowers Choice Award, The UKLA Award, Diverse Book Award and Sheffield Children’s Book Award. It was also a Guardian best book of 2020. Her second novel The Crossing won The Costa Children’s Book Award, and was also shortlisted for the Waterstones Book Prize 2022, the Carnegie Medal 2022, the YA Book Prize 2022 and the CLPE CLIPPA Poetry Award 2022. She spent a year as an associate artist with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the Soho Writers Lab and Kali Theatre’s writer’s lab, where she wrote Payback, This Other Eden (Arcola Theatre), She’s The Bitchy One (Camden Fringe), Flying Solo, A Dangerous Woman (UK tours) and Starting Out (Birmingham Repertory Theatre/Hackney Showrooms). Mann is also the founder of Run The World – an organisation that works with women and girls from marginalised backgrounds and helps to empower them through sport and storytelling.
Tessa Walker is a theatre director and dramaturg. She is currently an Associate Director at Hampstead Theatre and was previously an Associate Director at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Her recent credits include Ravenscourt; Big, Big, Sky (Hampstead Theatre), Bright Places, Jekyll and Hyde, 101 Dalmatians, The Whip Hand, Looking for John, The Quiet House, Folk (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), Symphony of Us (Coventry Cathedral), The Glad Game (Nottingham Playhouse), The Snow Queen (Sherman Theatre), The Gatekeeper (Royal Exchange), The Company Will Overlook a Moment of Madness (National Theatre of Scotland), Dream Pill, Dancing Bears (Soho Theatre), The Red Helicopter (Almeida Theatre), She From The Sea (LIFT), Harm’s Way (The Lowry), Black Crows (Arcola Theatre) and Orange (Script Cymru). Walker has also been a Literary Director at Paines Plough and a Literary Associate at the National Theatre of Scotland.
Mercury Theatre present
THEY DON’T PAY? WE WON’T PAY!
An adaptation of Dario Fo’s Sotto paga? Non si paga!
Written by Deborah McAndrew
Director: Ryan McBryde
17 – 31 March 2023
Press Night: Wednesday 22 March at 7:30pm
The cost of living is out of control – and so is Anthea. Sick of scrimping and scraping to pay her energy bills, she starts a riot in the local supermarket resulting in a group of raging housewives looting the building.
Now, with a pile of freshly “liberated” groceries, Anthea and her best friend Maggie embark on a ludicrous, laugh-a-minute adventure, trying to keep their law-abiding husbands in the dark whilst staying two steps ahead of the crime squad.
They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! is the work of Dario Fo, Nobel Laureate and the master of farce. Deborah McAndrew’s whip-smart adaptation mixes political satire, hilarious plot twists and wise-cracking dialogue to create a thrilling play about the lengths people will go to when they’re desperate.
Dario Fo was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. Fo wrote more than 80 plays, co-authoring many of them with his wife, Franca Rame. His plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world. Amongst his most significant works are Morte accidentale di un anarchico (1970; Accidental Death of an Anarchist) and Mistero Buffo (1969).
Deborah McAndrew is a British playwright and actor, as well as co-founder and Creative Director of the Stoke-on-Trent-based Claybody Theatre Company. In 2004 McAndrew, adapted Leopold Lewis’s 1871 play The Bells for Northern Broadsides. Since then, her adaptations have included Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Nikolai Erdman’s The Suicide – under the new title The Grand Gesture. Her original plays include Vacuum, Ugly Duck, An August Bank Holiday Lark, Losing the Plot, Beyond the Veil, Til the Cows Come Home, One of Each and Dirty Laundry.
Ryan McBryde is the Creative Director of Mercury Theatre. His productions for the Mercury include The Comedy of Errors, Aladdin, Baskerville, Oliver!, Moll Flanders and Pieces of String (the latter was nominated for UK Theatre Award for Best Musical Production and won Best New Musical at the Stage Debut Awards). Other recent credits include Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Trier, Germany), Faust, 1984 (Alte Schauspielhaus Stuttgart), Love on the Links, Before the Party, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk (Salisbury Playhouse), The Invisible Man (Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch), Saturday Night Fever; Angus, Thongs and Even More Snogging (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Who’s Tommy (European tour), A Day at the Racists (Finborough Theatre/Barking Broadway), The House of Mirrors and Hearts (Arcola Theatre), Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery (Bridewell Theatre), and Terie Vigen (Royal Concert Hall).
A Mercury Original in co-production with Blouse & Skirt!, Goblin Theatre and Little Angel Theatre THE INSTRUMENTALS
Written and directed by Mia Jerome
Music by Cal-I Jonel; Set, Puppetry and Costume Design by Oliver Hymans
30 May – 3 June 2023
Suitable for ages 4+
When Belle is feeling down, she slips into her grandfather’s basement and discovers his old dusty instruments. But far from being junk, The Instrumentals are pure funk, and they teach Belle to ‘get down’ in a whole new way. Bursting to life with brilliant puppetry and bold music, The Instrumentals is full of love and laughter, about the memories we hold and how we celebrate life.
This is a show for all children with characters, story and inspiration from the African-Caribbean diaspora. It’s full of uplifting original music with soulful sounds and seventies grooves. Combined with innovative puppetry and lots of comedy, this fun musical journey will have audiences dancing in the aisles!
Mia Jerome is an actress, writer, director and dramaturg from Essex. In 2021, Jerome founded Blouse & Skirt! Theatre Company to celebrate stories, songs, performers and puppets from the African-Caribbean diaspora. The first major production from Blouse & Skirt! was Rice & Peas – a three course, three act immersive dining experience inspired by her own family history. Her directing credits include Squad Goals (Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club), Old Wounds (virtual), Second Home (VAULT Festival), Witness, Fatty (Camden Fringe), Virginity Dot Com (Dogma Theatre) and What! A Load of Rubbish (Rae Lee Productions).
A Mercury co-production with Derren Brown, Andrew O’Connor, Michael Vine, Paul Sandler and Kenny Wax for Unbelievable Productions
UNBELIEVABLE
Written and directed by Derren Brown, Andy Nyman and Andrew O’Connor
28 July – 26 August 2023
Derren Brown’s one-man shows have won two Olivier Awards and played to sold out houses on tour across the UK, in the West End and on Broadway.
Now, with his long-time collaborators Andy Nyman and Andrew O’Connor, has created a new show starring a multi-talented cast of seven who will perform magic like you have never seen!
Be among the first to see the world première of this theatrical experience before it goes to the West End.
Derren Brown is a mentalist, illusionist, painter, photographer and author. He began performing in 1992, making his television debut with Derren Brown: Mind Control in 2000, and has since produced several more shows for stage and television. His 2006 show Something Wicked This Way Comes and his 2012 show Svengali won him two Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment. His other West End shows include Showman (Apollo Theatre/UK tour), Underground (Playhouse Theatre/UK tour), Miracle, Infamous (Palace Theatre/UK tour), Enigma (Adelphi Theatre/UK tour), Mind Reader – An Evening of Wonders (Garrick Theatre/UK tour) and Derren Brown: Live (Palace Theatre/UK tour). He made his Broadway debut with his 2019 stage show Secret, and has also written books for both magicians and the general public. His five-star sell-out production of Showman is currently playing in the West End, following a 10-month UK tour.
Andrew Nyman is an actor, director, writer and magician. He co-wrote and co-directed four of Derren Brown’s stage shows, all of which have toured and played the West End. For Something Wicked This Way Comes they were awarded the 2006 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. Their fourth show Enigma was also nominated for Olivier Award 2010, and he was nominated for the Lew Grade Award at the 2007 BAFTA Awards for his work on Derren Brown: The Heist (alongside collaborators Derren Brown, Simon Mills and Ben Caron). He is the co-creator and co-writer of the television shows Derren Brown – Mind Control, Trick of the Mind, Russian Roulette, Séance, and Messiah and Trick of the Mind. Nyman is also co-creator of the long-running horror stage-play Ghost Stories, which played at Liverpool Playhouse and Lyric Hammersmith, before transferring to the Duke of York’s Theatre where it played for 1000 shows. Since then, it has played in Moscow and Toronto, and was nominated for two Olivier Awards in 2011, Best Sound and Best Entertainment.
Andrew O’Connor is actor, comedian, magician, television presenter and executive producer. He has directed productions of 42nd Street (Theatre Royal Bath), Anything Goes, The Nerd (UK tours) and The Odd Couple (Arts Theatre). In 2015, O’Connor directed Derren Brown: Miracle with Andy Nyman. He has also produced a variety of comedy and magic-related television shows, including Peep Show and The Quick Trick Show, as well as most of Derren Brown’s programmes, winning two BAFTA awards. He was also the founder and executive producer of Objective Media Group.
Please note, Derren Brown will not be appearing in this show.
Mercury Theatre Listings
Balkerne Gate, Colchester CO1 1PT
Box Office: www.mercurytheatre.co.uk / 01206 573948
Main house tickets from £15; Studio theatre tickets from £10
SEASON AT A GLANCE:
PINOCCHIO
Until 31 December 2022
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Until 15 January 2023
Captioned: 6 January at 7pm
Touch tour: 7 January at 12:30pm
Audio described: 7 January at 2pm
Adult only performances: 10 – 13 January at 7:30pm
RUN REBEL
25 February – 4 March 2023
Press night: Thursday 2 March at 7pm
Age guidance: 11+
THEY DON’T PAY? WE WON’T PAY!
17 – 31 March 2023
Press night: Wednesday 22 March at 7:30pm
Age guidance: 12+
THE INSTRUMENTALS
30 May – 3 June
Studio Theatre
Age guidance: 4+
UNBELIEVABLE
28 July – 26 August 2023
Age guidance: 9+
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