REVIEW: Eventide, Arcola Theatre Studio 2 ✭✭✭

Eventide by Barney Norris at the Arcola Theatre

This is a genial, quietly satisfying set of reflections on how hard rural life can be and how mostly distant it has always been from any kind of Arcadian idyll or vision of pastoral. Rates of depression and suicide are higher in rural than in urban Britain and in its gently insistent way this play provides valuable, sober insights for those of us living in towns as to how and why this should be so.

Casting Announced For New Barney Norris Play Eventide

Playwright Barney Norris

Up In Arms and Arcola Theatre will presented the world premiere of Eventide, a new play by Barney Norris at the Arcola Theatre ahead of a UK Tour. A love song, an elegy, a celebration – Eventide tells the story of three people whose worlds are disappearing. John is a landlord forced to sell up; Liz is a church organist who can’t get a gig; Mark takes what work he can just to pay the rent. Their tales unfold round the back of a pub hidden deep in the heart of the Hampshire countryside. But is that heart still beating? The play will be directed by Alice Hamilton and feature Hasan Dixon (Mark), James Doherty (John), and Ellie Piercy (Liz). Barney Norris won the Critics’ Circle and Off West End Most Promising Playwright Awards for Visitors (‘Extraordinary’ The Guardian, ‘Heartbreaking’ New York Times), which played a sell-out run at Arcola … Read more