Emily Hardy

Emily studied english and performed professionally before training as a multi-media journalist at the Press Association, and subsequently writing across a broad range of titles in the health, education and entertainment sectors. Her flair for theatre journalism stems from a life-long interest in the versatility and force of the form and a desire to make a positive contribution to the arts.

Alexandra Wood’s Merit comes to the Finborough

News, Off West End
Merit at the Finborough Theatre

The London premiere of award-winning playwright Alexandra Wood’s new play Merit kicks off the Finborough Theatre’s spring season with a four week run from 1 March. Set in Spain in 2013, Merit explores what people will be driven to during times of financial chaos, when bankers are getting filthy rich whilst others are left unable to support their families. Wood’s previous plays include The Human Ear (Paines Plough and UK tour), Man to Man (Wales Millennium Centre), Ages (Old Vic New Voices), The Initiate (Paines Plough – winner of a Scotsman Fringe First), The Empty Quarter (Hampstead Theatre) and the radio play Twelve Years (BBC Radio 4). She is a past winner of the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright and was the Big Room Playwright-in-Residence at Paines Plough in 2013. Director Tom Littler returns to the Finborough Theatre having achieved a record seven OffWestEnd Award nominations last year … Read more

Arrows & Traps Theatre Company bring Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to life

News, Off West End
Anna Karenina at the Brockley Jack Theatre

Helen Edmundson has translated a thousand pages, with nearly that many characters, into an intimate chamber drama to appear at the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre in March. Anna Karenina tells the story of the wife of a provincial governor, who revolts against a superficial existence of compromise and embarks on a scandalous affair with a charming officer Count Vronsky. As Anna is brought to the brink of destruction, she must finally decide whom she is living for. Edmundson’s plays include The Clearing (Bush Theatre), Mother Teresa is Dead (Royal Court), Mary Shelley (Shared Experience at The Tricycle and on tour), and The Heresy of Love (Royal Shakespeare Company). Her other work includes Coram Boy (National Theatre and on Broadway), a new version of Calderon’s Life is a Dream (The Donmar), a musical adaptation of Swallows and Amazons, written with composer Neil Hannon, (Bristol Old Vic, West End and on tour) … Read more

Edward Snowden’s story told with a ‘thriller-like momentum’

News, Off West End
Whistleblower - the story of Edward Snowden at Waterloo East Theatre

Rewritten in the light of current events, Whistleblower the story of Edward Snowden returns for a four-week run at Waterloo East Theatre. The play tells the story of Snowden’s life on the run. He’s abandoned Hawaii and is holed up in a Hong Kong hotel room. Tortured by thoughts of his girlfriend, his mother and father and the fate of other whistleblowers in prison, he waits to see who will find him first. Lynn Gardner for The Guardian said: “Whistleblower is always watchable. Events unfold with a thriller-like momentum…” Whistleblower runs at Waterloo East Theatre from 8th February to 6th March 2016

Round The Horne makes a comeback at the Museum of Comedy

News, Off West End
Round The Horne at the Museum Of Comedy

Following a UK tour, Round The Horne has just commenced an eight-week run at the Museum of Comedy. Celebrating the ground-breaking radio comedy series of the 1960s, Apollo Theatre Company have recreated the original recordings from the BBC’s Paris Studios to mark its 50th anniversary. Director Tim Astley has compiled the script for the production using only material from the original broadcasts, with the full blessing and support of the original writers’ estates. On why he wanted to mount this production, Tim explains: “I thought it was only right that its 50th anniversary be celebrated, and what better way to do that than to be able to transport fans back to the original recordings and recreate the anarchic atmosphere that made the programme such fun to listen to?” With the eponymous Kenneth Horne at the helm and the stellar supporting cast of Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden, Round … Read more

Three days of Drama and Literature at Hampstead Theatre


Events, News, Off West End
Hampstead Theatre

Following last year’s success, Hampstead Theatre has confirmed that its second annual festival will take place on 18 – 20 March 2016. The Festival boasts over 30 unique events including workshops and panel discussions featuring Sir David Hare, Sir Matthew Bourne, Howard Brenton, Darcey Bussell, Tim Pigott-Smith, Deborah Moggach, Meera Syal and Kate Mosse. Hampstead Theatre’s artistic director Edward Hall and producer Issy van Randwyck have invited a wide variety of artists to share their stories and work processes. Hall said: “Hampstead Theatre is thrilled to be bringing back The Festival after its incredible success in 2015. “We hope this year’s programme will give attendees an opportunity to meet some of the most original thinkers in British culture today and discover new insights into the wonderful worlds these people work in.” The first Hampstead Theatre Festival was hosted in March 2015 and attracted a 2,500 audience footfall in just one … Read more

Attenborough gives Hampstead Theatre Reasons to be Happy

News, Off West End
Reasons To Be happy at Hampstead Theatre

Michael Attenborough directs the UK premiere of Neil LaBute’s romantic comedy, Reasons to be Happy, at Hampstead Theatre in March. Reasons to be Happy – a companion piece to Reasons to be Pretty, directed by Michael Attenborough in 2011 – follows the lives and loves of four friends as they desperately search for happiness and explores ‘unfinished business’ in relationships. LaBute’s other plays include Reasons to be Pretty, Bash, The Shape of Things, The Distance From Here, Autobahn, Fat Pig, Some Girls, This Is How It Goes and In A Forest Dark and Deep. His films include In the Company of Men, for which he won the New York Critics’ Circle Award for Best First Feature and the Filmmakers’ Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival. Reasons to be Happy is Michael Attenborough’s fourth collaboration with LaBute. The former artistic director of the Almeida Theatre returns to Hampstead Theatre following Luna … Read more

English premiere of Jo Clifford’s acclaimed Every One at Battersea Arts Centre

News, Off West End
Every One at Battersea Arts Centre

Chris Goode and Company and Battersea Arts Centre present Every One by Jo Clifford – a take on the medieval morality play Everyman. Clifford’s exploration of grief and acceptance sees the award-winning Chris Goode & Company producing the work of another writer for the first time. Every One received great critical acclaim when it was originally produced by the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh in 2010. The incredibly personal play was sparked by the death of Clifford’s wife, and draws from her experiences of the sudden death of her mother at a young age and her own feelings of mortality following heart surgery. Jo Clifford is most recently known for The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven, her one woman show featuring a transgender Jesus coming back to the world. She is an Edinburgh based writer, performer, poet and teacher with about 80 plays to her name. She is an associate … Read more