Finborough Theatre Presents FOG

The world premiere of Fog opens at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre on Tuesday, 3 January 2012 (Press Night: Thursday, 5 January 2012 at 7.30pm) for a limited four-week season, the final play in the New Writing at the Finborough Theatre Season, playing November 2011 to January 2012.

Fog is about two families: one white and dysfunctional, the other black and aspiring. Fog and Lou were put into care as young children by their soldier father, Cannon, following the untimely death of their mother.

Ten years later, Cannon returns, expecting to reassemble his family around him. But he feels a stranger in this ‘new' England of broken promises. And nothing could prepare him for the damage that abandonment and an inadequate care system has wreaked on his kids. He desperately tries to repair what has been broken, but is it all too little too late?

Fog is the world premiere of a stunning new play, a unique collaboration between a male actor in his 20s and an established female writer/performer in her 60s, directed by multi-award-winning writer/director Ché Walker.

Playwright Tash Fairbanks was born in 1948. A writer, theatrical performer and playwright, she trained at E15 Acting School, and was a founder member of the lesbian feminist Siren Theatre Company in 1979. Her playwriting includes commissions for Theatre of Thelema, Women's Theatre Group, Graeae, Theatre Centre, Charter Theatre Company and Siren Theatre Company with such works as Mama's Gone a Hunting (1980), Curfew (1982), From the Divine (1983), Now Wash Your Hands Please (1984), Pulp (1985), Hotel Destiny (1987) and Swamp (1989) which have toured extensively in UK, Holland, Germany and USA. Film includes Nocturne (Channel 4). Her published work includes Siren Plays (Taylor and Francis) and Fearful Symmetry (Onlywomen Press). Her work as an actor includes productions for Sidewalk Theatre, Gay Sweatshop, Theatre of Thelema and Siren Theatre Company, as well as receiving a nomination from Plays and Players for Best New Actress of the Year.

Playwright Toby Wharton was born in 1984 and trained at RADA. Acting for theatre includes Days of Significance (Royal Shakespeare Company), Ajax (Riverside Studios),Transient (Pleasance Edinburgh and Shunt Vaults Theatre), Home (Tristan Bates Theatre), Six Days (Camden People's Theatre) and Shalom Baby (Theatre Royal Stratford East) as well as readings and workshops at The Royal Court Theatre, Young Vic Theatre, Soho Theatre and National Theatre Studio. Acting for film and television includes Postcode, Bashment, Silent Witness, The Bill and The Gates, a new sitcom for Sky 1. Fog is Toby's first play.

Director Ché Walker returns to the Finborough Theatre where he made his directorial debut with Achidi J's Final Hours in 2004, and where he directed two sell-out productions - Etta Jenks, starring Daniela Nardini and Clarke Peters (2005) and Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge (2011). Other Theatre includes Been So Long (Young Vic Theatre and English Touring Theatre), Extended Family (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Glory of Living (BAC), Estate Walls and Little Baby Jesus (Oval House Theatre), Lovesong (English Touring Theatre and Edinburgh Festival), Car Thieves (National Theatre Studio) and Dance for Me (Tricycle Theatre). Ché's writing includes Been So Long (Young Vic Theatre and Royal Court Theatre), The Frontline (Shakespeare's Globe), Iphigenia (Southwark Playhouse), Flesh Wound (Royal Court Theatre), Crazy Love (Paines Plough), Car Thieves (National Theatre Studio), Carmen (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park), Dance For Me (Theatre Royal Stratford East) and Rootz Spectacular (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry). He is also writing the book for The Eighth, a new musical with music and lyrics by Paul Heaton of The Beautiful South for this year's Manchester International Festival as well as writing his own musical adaptation of The Bacchae with Arthur Darvill for English Touring Theatre. This year, Ché will direct the feature film adaptation of his original musical, Been So Long from his own screenplay for Greenacre Films/UKFC and is also developing an original television series with the BBC.

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