Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen, adapted by Tim Luscombe
directed by Ian Forrest, designed by Martin Johns
Theatre by the Lake in association with Cumbria County Council
Saturday 29 May - Friday 5 November,
Main House
Catherine is an impressionable 17-year-old, caught up in the social whirl of fashionable Bath, her head full of new dresses, balls, theatres and Gothic novels. When she is invited to stay at ancient and mysterious Northanger Abbey, childhood home of the man of her dreams, Catherine’s imagination starts to work overtime, fuelled by the twilight world of Gothic romance…A fresh and witty adaptation of Austen’s classic novel.
Audio-described performance: Wed 8 September, 2pm
Captioned performance: Wed 29 September, 2pm
Read reviews here
Click here to listen to Christopher Webster and James Hogg's weekly podcast for BBC Radio Cumbria
Shining City
by Conor McPherson
directed by Zoe Waterman, designed by Elizabeth Wright
Saturday 29 May - Friday 5 November,
Studio
Set in the office of a Dublin therapist, this is a chilling, contemporary ghost story dealing with guilt, redemption and loneliness at the heart of a crowded city. Ian leaves the priesthood and becomes a therapist. Can he help a man claiming to have seen the ghost of his dead wife?
In this gripping and absorbing psychological drama, McPherson, the multi-award winning author of The Weir, explores what it means to lose faith in God, in relationships and in one’s self – and the call that the dead have on us all.
Strong language/adult content
Read reviews here
£16 - £8
What the Butler Saw
by Joe Orton
directed by Ian Forrest, designed by Martin Johns
Friday 11 June - Saturday 6 November,
Main House
What really happened in the linen cupboard at the Station Hotel? Why does Dr. Prentice need to borrow one of his wife’s dresses, and why isn’t she wearing one? Why does Mrs. Prentice keep seeing naked men? Why is the drugged body of a police sergeant in the garden? And what happened to the missing parts of Winston Churchill? Orton’s comic masterpiece, a fast, frantically funny, Freudian farce takes to the Main House stage.
Contains nudity, gun shots and sexual references
Audio-described performance: Wed 6 October, 2pm
Captioned performance: Wed 15 September, 2pm
Read reviews here
£23 - £8
Silence
by Moira Buffini
directed by Stefan Escreet, designed by Elizabeth Wright
Friday 18 June - Saturday 6 November,
Studio
Viking bloodshed, hallucinogenic drugs and a cart-chase from Canterbury to Cumbria! Behind every great man stands a great woman and Ymma of Normandy was Queen to both King Ethelred and King Canute. But in this deliciously imaginative play, Ymma is betrothed to Silence, Lord of Cumbria, and must undertake a perilous journey North in the company of Eadric Longshaft and a priest named Roger.
Author of West End hit Dinner and co-writer of Jordan (Theatre by the Lake 2007), Moira Buffini’s award-winning comic drama is a road trip through Dark Ages England with a cast of characters inspired by history and all living on the edge of destruction.
Strong language/sexually explicit
Read reviews here
Click here to listen to Christopher Webster and James Hogg's weekly podcast for BBC Radio Cumbria.
Read The Guardian's blog about this production!
£16 - £8
Bus Stop
by William Inge
directed by Stefan Escreet, designed by Martin Johns
Friday 23 July - Wednesday 3 November,
Main House
A warm-hearted American romance set in a snowbound Kansas diner in the 1950s. When a disparate group of bus passengers are forced to spend the night together in Grace’s Diner, they each reveal how love touches their lives. Among them is Cherie, a night club singer, who is trying to get away from Bo Decker, a headstrong young cowboy who intends to marry her and take her back to Montana…
“There’s gonna be trouble. I kin feel it in my bones.”
A contemporary and friend of Tennessee Williams, Inge won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Picnic and eventually became known as the ‘Playwright of the Midwest’, while Bus Stopwas adapted into the 1956 film of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe.
Audio-described performance: Wed 22 September, 2pm
Captioned performance: Wed 13 October, 2pm
Read The Guardian’s blog about this production!
Read reviews for this show here.
£23 - £8
The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams
directed by Ian Forrest, designed by Elizabeth Wright
Theatre by the Lake in association with Invest in Cumbria
Friday 30 July - Wednesday 3 November,
Studio
A cramped tenement apartment in 1930s St Louis: a mother clinging frantically to her memories of Southern Belle gentility; a son, a poet with a job in a warehouse, whose only escape is the movies; a daughter as fragile as a piece of her own glass collection and a gentleman caller…
Tennessee Williams’ unforgettable memory play and an American classic.
Read reviews here
Click here to listen to Christopher Webster and James Hogg's weekly podcast for BBC Radio Cumbria.
£16 - £8