Paines Plough plays transfer to Orange Tree after tour

Mark Ludmon

Mark Ludmon has been a journalist for over 20 years, specialising in writing about theatre and the arts as well as bars, pubs and drink. He has been on the theatre judging panel for London’s Olivier Awards and has a masters degree in English literature, specialising in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He has an MA in theatre research, criticism and dramaturgy from the University of London’s Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. You can find him tweeting about theatre as @MarkLudmon and writing about theatre at markludmon.com.

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Black MountainBrad BirchElinor CookHow To Be A KidNewsOff West End

Four productions by leading theatre company Paines Plough are to transfer to London’s Orange Tree Theatre after touring.

Black Mountain by Brad Birch, Out Of Love by Elinor Cook and How To Be A Kid by Sarah McDonald-Hughes will transfer to the theatre in Richmond in a co-production with Plaines Plough, Orange Tree Theatre and Theatr Clwyd. They will run from January 22 to March 3, 2018.

The three plays – part of Paines Plough’s pop-up Roundabout theatre programme – will be preceded by the company’s global phenomenon Every Brilliant Thing which will play at Orange Tree Theatre from October 9 to 28, 2017. Black Mountain, Out Of Love and How To Be A Kid are currently being previewed at Theatr Clwyd in Mold in Flintshire from June 24 to July 22 before opening in Roundabout @ Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from August 4 to 27.

After this, Roundabout will embark on a UK tour with the three plays to Salford, Kendal, Margate, Lincoln, Darlington, Poole, Stoke and Luton in autumn 2017. All three productions star Hasan Dixon, Katie Elin-Salt and Sally Messham and are directed by James Grieve.

Black Mountain is a tense psychological thriller about Rebecca and Paul who run away to an isolated house in the country to work things out in their relationship, but they are being followed….

In Out of Love, Lorna and Grace are best friends forever but, when Lorna gets a place at university and Grace gets pregnant, they suddenly find themselves in starkly different worlds.

How To Be A Kid is about 12-year-old Molly who had to grow up quickly to look after the home and her little brother Joe while her mother was ill. When her mum is feeling better, Molly is faced with the challenge of learning to be a child again.

A play about depression and the ones we love, Every Brilliant Thing was developed with Paines Plough over a decade ago by Duncan Macmillan, whose other hit plays include 1984 with Robert Icke and People Places and Things.

It was written by Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe and is directed by Paines Plough joint artistic director George Perrin. The production, with Pentabus Theatre Company, has already been seen by over 45,000 people across four continents.

It is coming to the end of a tour of the UK, Ireland and France, with upcoming dates in Dublin, Cork and Ennis in July, followed by a tour of South Korea.