The Royal Shakespeare Company returns to Poole this autumn with Roy Williams' acclaimed and blisteringly topical play, Days of Significance, which runs at Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts from Tuesday November 10. The RSC last played Poole in 2008 with an adaptation of Malorie Blackman's Noughts & Crosses.
Two young soldiers join their friends to binge drink the night before they leave for active service in Iraq. Their complex love lives and mortal fears directly impact on their tour of duty. Roy Williams' timely and explosive play examines the aftermath of a war whose conflicts rage far beyond the Iraqi battleground.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Days of Significance enjoyed an initial run at the Swan Theatre in Stratford before a critically acclaimed transfer to the Tricycle Theatre in London. For the Tricycle in 2008, Roy significantly re-worked the text to dramatise and acknowledge the shifting mood of a country now looking at troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Talking about the play, the writer Roy Williams, said: "In a nutshell, the play is about the war in Iraq and how it impacts on a group of young working class Londoners. Whether they like it or not, the war forces them all, in ways they never thought possible, to re examine themselves away from the stereotype they are associated with, young, thuggish, sexually frustrated binge-drinking white trash."
RSC Company Dramaturg Jeanie O'Hare said: "Roy's play is very funny and captures the other side of the news. It is a captivating portrait of young people pitting their wits against a political war they find baffling. Roy captures the subtle moods and atmospheres of disillusion and desperation of small town life. He looks at how we make our young soldiers into extreme versions of themselves and then we dump them back into the life they left. His characters have an inventive wit, which when mixed with cigarettes, sex and alcohol becomes lethal. It drives them tumbling into an uncertain future."
Roy Williams is one of the UK's most exciting playwrights. His recent work includes the stage adaptation of Absolute Beginners (Lyric Hammersmith), Joe Guy (Tiata Fahodzi in association with Soho Theatre and New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich), Fallout (Royal Court), Baby Girl and Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads (National Theatre and tour). He was awarded the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright in 2001 for Clubland (Royal Court), the Alfred Fagon Award in 1997, and the OBE in 2008.
Days of Significance is directed by Maria Aberg. Maria directed the original production, and her other directorial work includes State of Emergency (Gate Theatre), Crime and Punishment (National Theatre), Alaska (Royal Court), Gustav III (National Theatre of Sweden) and Stallerhof (Southwark Playhouse). The production is designed by Lizzie Clachan, the lighting designer is David Holmes, the composer is Carolyn Dowing, the movement director is Ayse Tashkiran and the fight director is Malcolm Ranson.
The cast is: Danny Dalton (Tony/Sean), Jason Deer, Simon Harrison (Steve), Scott Hazell, Steven Helliwell (Vince/Darren), David Kennedy (Lenny), Luke Norris (Dan), George Rainsford (Jamie), Mark Theodore (Brookes/Bouncer), Venetia Campbell (Donna), Sandy Foster (Clare), Sheryl Gannaway (Wedding Guest), Joanna Horton (Hannah) and Sarah Ridgeway (Trish).
