29 Sep CASTING: Grand Guignol at the Southwark Playhouse

1903, in the back streets of Monmartre, the Theatre du Grand Guignol opens its doors to an unsuspecting public. The plays performed, rife with madness and murders, are sold out every night. A psychiatrist obsessed with the playwright’s gruesome dramas ingratiates his way into the company. But when he starts to unpick the author’s mind, the boundaries between theatre and truth begin to blur…

Jonathan Broadbent will star as De Lorde, alongside Paul Chequer (Ratineau), Matthew Pearson (Binet), Robert Portal (Paulais), Emily Raymond (Maxa) and Andy Williams (Maurey).

Delighting in this lost theatrical form, Carl Grose’s wild play works fast and loose with convention. Grand Guignol was a theatre movement of thrill, shock and horror and the play centres on the original Parisian theatre company and its members. Grand Guignol is strange, funny, gothic and philosophical – a black comedy, a psychological thriller and an unrepentant splatter-fest guaranteed to keep you guessing (and wincing) to the very last horror show.

Carl Grose has written numerous plays including Quick Silver, 49 Donkeys Hanged, The 13 Midnight Challenges of Angelus Diablo and Gargantua. Previous plays at The Drum include Superstition Mountain and Horse Piss For Blood, also directed by Simon Stokes. For the past eighteen years he has worked extensively with the internationally acclaimed Kneehigh Theatre as both actor and writer, and has written for Told By An Idiot, National Theatre of Wales, Vesturport, Spymonkey, Soho Theatre and BBC TV and Radio. He also co-founded the Cornish production company o-region. Carl is currently writing new plays for the RSC and the National Theatre.

Since taking over as Artistic Director in 1998, Simon Stokes has established the Theatre Royal Plymouth as one of the UK’s most influential and prolific venues for new writing. On his watch, Simon has produced and co-produced more than 60 plays, developing, supporting and premiering work by such names as Abi Morgan, Mike Bartlett, Anthony Neilson, Debbie Tucker, Alecky Blythe, Mark Ravenhill, Lucinda Coxon, Bryony Lavery, Chris Goode, Gregory Burke, Philip Ridley and Doug Lucie. He
has close and very long standing production relationships with Frantic Assembly and the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed as well as Told By An Idiot and Paines Plough among many others.

Dates: 23 October – 22 November 2014

For tickets and information: southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/the-large/grand-guignol