Next year, West London audiences are invited into a relationship on the brink as Spanish Oranges receives its world premiere in an intimate and unflinching new production. Produced by Counterminers, M&M Ents, and The Playground Theatre, the play marks the stage debut of acclaimed author Alba Arikha and promises a sharp, emotionally charged examination of love, ambition, and artistic power.
Set over the course of a single turbulent morning, Spanish Oranges centres on Fiona and Ivo — a married couple whose professional lives are pulling them in radically different directions. Fiona is a novelist on the brink of major success, her latest book blurring the line between fiction and confession. Ivo, once a celebrated actor, has been cancelled, sidelined, and left questioning whether Fiona’s rise has been built on the ruins of his own reputation.
What unfolds is a tense, razor-sharp dissection of how success reshapes intimacy. Love clashes with resentment. Truth slips into narrative. Art feeds on the lives closest to it. As the balance of power shifts between the couple, the play asks what happens when one voice is amplified while another is silenced — and what the cost is for the people caught in between.
Leading the cast is Maryam D’Abo as Fiona Stedman, delivering a performance of intelligence and emotional precision. She is joined by Jay Villiers as Ivo, a man grappling with relevance, rage, and erasure, and Arianna Branca as Lydia Stedman, their daughter, whose presence sharpens the personal stakes of the conflict.
The production is directed by Myriam Cyr, whose international career spans theatre, film, and multimedia work across London, New York, and Europe. Her approach places the audience directly inside the room with the characters, observing events unfold in real time. As she describes it, we become flies on the wall, witnessing two lives irrevocably change — with no easy resolution waiting at the end.
Writer Alba Arikha brings formidable literary credentials to her theatrical debut. An award-recognised novelist, essayist, and memoirist, her work has been translated into eight languages and widely published across major cultural platforms. In Spanish Oranges, she turns her attention to marriage as a living structure — shaped by success and failure, money and power, motherhood and ambition — and explores how two creative egos negotiate identity when the scales tip.
The creative team includes Sound Designer Martha Barrow and Lighting Designer Tom Beazley, adding further texture to a production that promises to feel intimate, claustrophobic, and emotionally exposed.
Spanish Oranges runs from Wednesday 11 February to Saturday 7 March, with a press performance on Monday 16 February. It is the debut production from M&M Ents, a new company formed by Myriam Cyr and Maryam D’Abo, and a striking example of the theatre’s ongoing commitment to bold, artist-led new work.
This is theatre that doesn’t flinch — a close-up portrait of love under pressure, and a timely exploration of who gets to tell the story when private lives become public art.
Spanish Oranges | February 11th – March 07th – Theatre
And because today is Christmas Day, a warm Merry Christmas to everyone reading. Whether you’re surrounded by family, stealing a quiet moment to yourself, or escaping into stories and culture for a little peace, thank you for spending part of the day here. Here’s wishing you comfort, kindness, and a little bit of theatre magic to look forward to in the year ahead.
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