Future Productions

‘HAPPY FAMILIES’

by John Godber

Directed by Kitty Cecil-Wright

Monday 12 – Saturday 17 November 2018

Bittersweet recollections of coming of age in a West Yorkshire family.

Full of warmth, understanding and humour, this is an affectionate and appealing portrait of an ordinary family struggling with change, bereavement and the generation gap. On his graduation day in 1978, John looks back over his teenage years, from 1967-1973, recalling all the embarrassments, tensions, joys and sorrows of family life in West Yorkshire. Older and better educated, he finds himself alienated from his working-class family who cannot understand his growing intellect and theatrical aspirations.

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‘A Bunch of Amateurs’

by Ian Hislop & Nick Newman

Directed by Colin Keir

Monday 11 – Saturday 16 February 2019

Keen to boost his flagging career, fading Hollywood star Jefferson Steel arrives in England to play King Lear in Stratford – only to find that this is not the birthplace of the Bard, but a sleepy Suffolk village. And instead of Kenneth Branagh and Dame Judi Dench, the cast are a bunch of amateurs trying to save their theatre from developers. Jefferson’s monstrous ego, vanity and insecurity are tested to the limit by the enthusiastic am-dram thespians. As acting worlds collide and Jefferson’s career implodes, he discovers some truths about himself – along with his inner Lear.