With just over two weeks until the production begins previews at the Trafalgar Studios, rehearsal pictures have today be released for acclaimed theatre company The Wardrobe Ensemble’s production of Education, Education, Education, in co-production with Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Shoreditch Town Hall. The Scotsman Fringe First Award and The Stage Edinburgh Award winning, smash-hit production will play a strictly limited four week run in London’s West End this summer.
“We in Germany, and Europe, have been watching somewhat envious as your country’s been undergoing a resurrection… Your newfound pride in your culture and your heritage… It’s so wonderful to see a country wearing its identity so proudly on its sleeve”
It's May 1997. The iPhone doesn't exist, no one knows who Harry Potter is, Titanic is on the shelves of every Blockbuster and we have just won Eurovision. Britain is the coolest place in the world.
“First a Eurovision win and now Tony’s our new Prime Minister. I can barely recognize this country; you know I actually saw people smiling on the train this morning.”
At the local secondary school it's a different story. It's the last week of term and Tobias, the new German language assistant has just arrived in the UK. While political change occurs outside of the classroom, a revolution slowly starts to take place within it. Tobias is greeted by a group of eccentric schoolteachers just trying to make it through the day, including Miss Belltop-Doyle who can't control her year 10s and Mr Pashley who is trying to keep a confiscated Tamagotchi alive.
This whip-smart show is a love letter to education in the 90s and is jam-packed with more hits than ‘Now That’s What I Call 1997’ including Oasis, Katrina and the Waves, The Spice Girls. Crammed with Teletubbies references, jokes about Take That and the Macarena, Education, Education, Education plays a strictly limited four week season at the Trafalgar Studios.
The Wardrobe Ensemble uses its singular style of irreverent humour and inventive theatricality to dissect education and responsibility at the dawn of Blair’s Britain in 1997. In Education, Education, Education audiences are thrown back to the 90s; the music, the fads and the icons as well as issues that remain pertinent to the twenty-first century experience.
The cast of Education, Education, Education will include: Tom Brennan (Paul McIntyre), Ben Vardy (Tim Pashley), Jesse Meadows (Susan Belltop-Doyle), Emily Greenslade (Emily Greenslade), James Newton (Tobias) and Tom England (Hugh Mills) with Hanora Kamen and Kerry Lovell sharing the role of Louise Turner. Education, Education, Education has been devised by The Wardrobe Ensemble and directed by Jesse Jones and Helena Middleton.
Education, Education, Education is a co-production between The Wardrobe Ensemble, Royal & Derngate, Northampton, and Shoreditch Town Hall, presented in the West End by Trafalgar Theatre Productions and Eilene Davidson.
Education, Education, Education
Trafalgar Studios 1, 14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY
31 May – 29 June 7.30pm, matinees at 2.3opm on Thursdays and Saturdays*
Press Night: 5th June
Box Office: 0844 871 7632/ www.educationplay.co.uk
*No matinee performance on Sat 22 and Thu 27 June
Directed by Jesse Jones and Helena Middleton
Written by The Wardrobe Ensemble
Design: Lucy Sierra
Lighting Design: Katharine Williams
Sound Design: Ben Grant
Dramaturg: Bea Roberts
Associate Sound Design: Daniel Balfour
Wardrobe Supervisor: Felicity Jones
Cast List:
Tom England- Hugh Mills
Emily Greenslade- Emily Greenslade
Jesse Meadows- Susan Belltop- Doyle
James Newton- Tobias
Tom Brennan- Paul McIntyre
Ben Vardy- Tim Pashley
Hanora Kamen – Louise Turner (until 15 June)
Kerry Lovell – Louise Turner (from 17 June)
