Theatre Royal Stratford East, Leeds Playhouse and HOME Manchester today announce cast and creatives for a new production to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Jonathan Harvey’s coming-out and coming-of-age story Beautiful Thing, directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike.
Raphael Akuwudike (Ste) and Joshua Asaré (Jamie) will lead the cast and are joined by Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge (Tony), Shvorne Marks (Sandra) and Scarlett Rayner (Leah).
Commenting on his new production, Director Anthony Simpson-Pike says:
“Beautiful Thing is an iconic queer story that holds a special place in so many people's hearts. Many people saw their own stories on stage and screen for the first time. In its 30th anniversary year, I feel excited for people who look like me to see their own stories reflected on stage too, to feel that same stirring of recognition in this seminal piece. Black queer people have always been around, this beautiful story of discovering your true self and falling in love belongs to all of us.”
Beautiful Thing opens at Stratford East from 08 September – 07 October, before playing Leeds Playhouse 18 – 28 October and HOME Manchester 31 October – 11 November.
Writer Jonathan Harvey
Director Anthony Simpson-Pike
Set & Costume Designer Rosie Elnile
Lighting Designer Elliot Griggs
Sound Designer Xana
Movement & Intimacy Director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster
Casting Director Isabella Odoffin CDG
Associate Director Robert Awosusi
Fight Director Bret Yount
Costume Supervisor Jackie Orton
Voice & Dialect Coach Joel Trill
Production Dramatherapist Wabriya King
Casting Assistant Joanna Sturrock
Teenage boys Ste and Jamie are neighbours on a South London estate. Jamie is more knowledgeable about The Sound of Music than football, while classmate Ste never misses a sports day. Both are being bullied, Jamie at school and Ste at home by his violent father and brother. One night, when things get too much, Ste seeks refuge in Jamie's flat and, sharing a bed, the boys strike up a new relationship. Together they come to terms with their sexuality and explore their feelings alongside their Mama Cass loving, rebellious friend Leah and with the much-needed emotional support of Jamie's lioness mother, Sandra.
This 30th-anniversary revival of Jonathan Harvey's iconic, coming-out and coming-of-age story set in the nineties, is about community, friendship, rites of passage and what it is to be 16 and in love.
Beautiful Thing is a touching, urban love story, full of warmth and humour.
Age guidance: 14+
Presented by Theatre Royal Stratford East, Leeds Playhouse and HOME Manchester.
Tickets now on sale. For more information visit www.stratfordeast.com.
CAST BIOGRAPHIES
Raphael Akuwudike (Ste) theatre credits include Romeo and Juliet (Almeida Theatre), Sons of the Prophet (Hampstead Theatre), First Touch (Nottingham Playhouse), The Seagull, Rage, Enron, The Last Ones, Twelfth Night, and Yerma (Drama Centre London) and The Jumper Factory (Young Vic).
Joshua Asaré (Jamie) is an actor and writer. Theatre includes Beautiful Thing (Above the Stag Theatre); Safe (Reading Rep), Comedy Troll (also writer, The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford), Comedy Trolls (also writer, Hackney Showrooms), Sundown Kiki and Sundown Kiki: Reloaded (Young Vic). Joshua was also a recipient of the VAULT Festival New Writer’s Award in 2018.
Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge (Tony) trained at LAMDA. Theatre credits include Pinocchio (National Theatre), Agatha, Escape the Scaffold, National Mourning and Glory: I Miss the Old Kanye for Top Trumps (Theatre503), Dead Yard (Arcola) and The Sam Wanamaker Festival (Shakespeare’s Globe). TV includes Rematch (HBO), Holby City, Enterprice, and Tracy Ullman’s Show (BBC), This Way Up (Channel 4 / Hulu) and Guilt (ABC). Film credits includes Make Me Famous.
Shvorne Marks (Sandra) theatre includes Meek (Headlong), A Profoundly Affectionate, Passionate Devotion to Someone (Royal Court), Deny Deny Deny (Park Theatre), House (Clean Break / Yard Theatre) and The Witch of Edmonton (RSC). TV credits include Three Little Birds, The Walk In, and Endeavour (ITV), Get Millie Black, Spy/Master, and The Baby (HBO), Breeders (FX) and Trigonometry (BBC).
Scarlett Rayner (Leah) TV includes Sexy Beast (Paramount+), Silverpoint (CBBC) and Casualty (BBC). Film credits include Dead in October, Pretty Outrageous, The Gatehouse (Best Actor - Tabloid Witch Awards) and Indweller (Best Performance - Starburst Film Festival).
CREATIVE BIOGRAPHIES
Jonathan Harvey (Writer) has written over 20 plays, most notably the Olivier-nominated Beautiful Thing, which premiered 30 years ago this year. After opening at The Bush Theatre it toured the country before transferring to the Donmar Warehouse, and then the Duke of York’s Theatre. It was then turned into a feature film for Film Four. His other plays include Babies (Royal Court), Canary (Hampstead Theatre), Rupert Street Lonely Hearts Club (Donmar Warehouse), Hushabye Mountain (Hampstead Theatre), Boom Bang a Bang (The Bush) and Our Lady of Blundellsands (Liverpool Everyman). This year, his panto Mother Goose toured the country starring Ian McKellen and John Bishop, and his Eurovision comedy A Thong For Europe premiered at the Royal Court, Liverpool. His plays have won him two Manchester Evening News Awards, the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, the George Devine Award and the John Whiting Award. For TV, Jonathan has written over 300 episodes of Coronation Street, for which he has won a Writers Guild of Great Britain Award, and two British Soap Awards (Best Episode and Best Scene). He created and wrote the BAFTA nominated sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme and Beautiful People, winner of Best Comedy at the Banff TV Festival. Other television work includes Call the Midwife, Shameless, At Home with the Braithwaites, The Catherine Tate Show and The Tracey Ullman Show.
Anthony Simpson-Pike (Director) is a director, dramaturg and writer. He is currently Deputy Artistic Director at The Yard Theatre, was previously Resident Director at Theatre Peckham and Associate Director at The Gate Theatre. As a dramaturg, Anthony has developed multiple seasons of work for The Gate and The Yard. Anthony is also a facilitator, having worked with young people and communities at The Gate, The Royal Court, The Young Vic, The Globe, and National Theatre. As director, theatre credits include The P Word (Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, Bush Theatre), An Octoroon (nominated for Best Production at the Irish Times Theatre Awards, Abbey Theatre) and Lava (nominated for Best Director at the Black British Theatre Awards, Bush Theatre). As dramaturg, theatre includes Much Ado About Nothing (RSC), Samskara (Yard Theatre), Hotline (Tron Theatre), Dear Young Monster (The Queer House) and Coup de Grace (Royal Court).
Rosie Elnile (Set & Costume Designer) is an award-winning performance designer. She was a recipient of the Jerwood Live Work Fund 2020. Theatre credits includes Jason and Medea Medley (Staatsschauspiel, Dresden), Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare’s Globe), Sound of the Underground, A Fight Against... (Una Lucha Contra...), Goats and Primetime 2017 (Royal Court Theatre), Big Guns, The Cherry Orchard and An Unfinished Man (The Yard), Paradise Now! (Bush Theatre), Violet (Britten Pears Arts / Royal Opera House / Music Theatre Wales), Peaceophobia (Fuel Theatre), Prayer, The Ridiculous Darkness, The Unknown Island and The Convert (Gate Theatre), Thirst Trap and Peacaphobia (Fuel Theatre), Run Sister Run (Sheffield Theatres), [Blank] (Donmar Warehouse), Our Town (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), The Wolves (Stratford East), The Mysteries and Three Sisters (Royal Exchange Theatre), Abandon (Lyric Hammersmith) and Returning to Haifa (Finborough Theatre).
Elliot Griggs (Lighting Designer) trained at RADA. Theatre includes all of it, Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks, A Fight Against, On Bear Ridge and Yen (Royal Court), Jitney (Old Vic / Leeds Playhouse / Headlong), Amélie the Musical (Criterion Theatre / The Other Palace / Watermill Theatre / UK Tour), The Wild Duck (Almeida), The Lover/The Collection (Harold Pinter Theatre), Fleabag (Wyndham’s Theatre / New York / Soho Theatre / Edinburgh Festival / Tour), No Pay? No Way!, Queens of the Coal Age and The Night Watch (Royal Exchange), Sleepova, The P Word and Hir (Bush Theatre), An Octoroon and Pomona (Off West End Award for Best Lighting Designer) (National Theatre / Orange Tree), Ivan and the Dogs (Young Vic), Richard III (Headlong), Disco Pigs (Trafalgar Studios / Irish Rep, NY), Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen (Fringe First Award) (Roundabout, Edinburgh) and The Swell, The Misfortune of the English, Last Easter, The Sugar Syndrome, Low Level Panic, Sheppey and buckets (Orange Tree); The Oracles (Punchdrunk).
XANA (Sound Designer) is a freestyle live loop musician, composer, spatial sound artist, and haptic specialist sound designer. XANA is a music science and technology lead at music research label Inventing Waves, and is a sound arts and music tech facilitator, and an Artistic Associate at the Young Vic. Theatre includes Word:Play and Living Newspaper #4 (Royal Court), Anna Karenina (Edinburgh Lyceum / Bristol Old Vic), Galatea (Emma Frankland / Wildworks / Marlborough Productions); Hamnet (RSC), The Trials and Marys Seacole (Donmar Warehouse), Sundown Kiki: Reloaded, The Collaboration, Sundown Kiki, Changing Destiny, Fairview, and Ivan and the Dogs (Young Vic), …cake (Theatre Peckham), Who Killed My Father (Tron / Scotland Tour), as british as a watermelon (Contact, Manchester), Hyde & Seek (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), Elephant, Sleepova (Offie Nomination for Sound Design), The P Word (Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre) and Strange Fruit (Bush Theatre) and Burgerz (Hackney Showroom). Immersive credits include Rumble In the Jungle (Rematch:Live) and The Architect (Actors Touring Company / Greenwich+Docklands International Festival).
Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster (Movement & Intimacy Director) theatre credits includes The Tempest Re-Imagined (also Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), The Bee in Me, Aesop’s Fables, and Grimm Tales (Unicorn Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Little Match Girl (and Other Happier Tales) (also UK Tour) (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Flood (Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch), You Bury Me (Bristol Old Vic / UK Tour), Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (Harold Pinter Theatre), Heart (Minetta Lane Theatre, New York), Romeo & Juliet and Little Women (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre), An Octoroon (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Cock (Ambassadors Theatre), Mum (Soho Theatre / Theatre Royal Plymouth), Rockets and Blue Lights (National Theatre), The Famous Five (also Chichester Festival Theatre), Robin Hood, Beauty and The Beast, The Panto That Nearly Never Was and Pavilion (Theatr Clwyd), Overflow and Chiaroscuro (Bush Theatre), You Stupid Darkness (Southwark Playhouse), On The Other Hand We’re Happy, Daughterhood, Dexter and Winters Detective Agency (Roundabout), Pop Music (UK Tour) and The Court Must Have a Queen (Hampton Court Palace).
Isabella Odoffin CDG (Casting Director) theatre credits include After the End, Extinct, The Sun, the Moon and the Stars and Sucker Punch (Stratford East), The Collaboration, Klippies and In a Word (Young Vic), All of Us, Master Harold & the Boys, Three Sisters, Small Island and A Taste of Honey (National Theatre), Word-Play (Royal Court), Moreno (Theatre503), J’Ouvert (Harold Pinter Theatre) and Antigone: The Burial at Thebes (Lyric Hammersmith). TV includes Supacell, The Last Bus (Netflix) and Anansi Boys (Amazon Prime). Film credits include How to Have Sex, I Used to Be Famous, Boxing Day; Girl, ear for eye and Blue Story. As casting associate, film includes Mary Queen of Scots, The Favourite, Baghdad in my Shadow, Beirut, Jawbone, Denial, This Beautiful Fantastic, Pan, Get Santa and Madame Bovary. As casting assistant, TV includes You, Me & The Apocalypse (Sky) and Sherlock Christmas Special (BBC). As casting assistant, film credits include Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Robert Awosusi (Assosciate Director) was previously the Developing Talent Producer at tiata fahodzi, Resident Director for the Almeida Theatre, and a part of the RE: Assemble programme with Paines Plough. He served on the Advisory Board for Boundless Theatre, and on the Board Shadowing Programme run by Artistic Directors of the Future. Theatre credits includes My Brother's Keeper (Theatre503), hang (LAMDA), JASMINE. HOME. MOTHER and The Lost (Young Vic), Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz (The Bunker), Our Tower (The Arcola), The Derek Smith Show (Mountview) and phroot sahlad (Tour). As associate, theatre includes Radio Elusia Podcast (Boundless) and WE KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE (Barbican). As assistant director, theatre includes Constellations (Donmar/ Vaudeville), "Daddy" - A Melodrama (Almeida), Fairview (Young Vic), Let Kilburn Shake (Kiln) and The Trial (Young Vic). Other work includes Made at Home: A Virtual Scratch (Tamasha) and Coronaville Delivery Service.
Bret Yount (Fight Director) theatre includes A Little Life (Harold Pinter Theatre / Savoy Theatre) Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe), Hope Has a Happy Meal, two Palestinians go dogging, The Glow and The Cane (Royal Court), Village Idiot, After the End, Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Dangerous Lady, Shalom Baby, A Clockwork Orange, The Graft, Two Women, Bad Blood Blues, The Harder They Come, Family Man, Gladiator Games and Bashment (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Akedah (Hampstead Theatre), Dirty Dancing (Dominion Theatre / UK Tour), Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic), Bad Jews (Arts Theatre), Force Majeure, Teenage Dick, Appropriate and Europe (Donmar Warehouse), Spring Awakening, The Hunt and Dance Nation (Almeida Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing and The Magician’s Elephant (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Crucible (also Gielgud Theatre), Blues for an Alabama Sky, Jack Absolute Flies Again, Nine Night (also Trafalgar Studios) and The Normal Heart (National Theatre), The Cherry Orchard and Hamlet (Theatre Royal Windsor), City of Angels (Garrick Theatre), The Son (Kiln Theatre), Caroline or Change (Playhouse Theatre), A Very Expensive Poison, Girl from the North Country (also Noel Coward Theatre / UK Tour) and Fanny & Alexander (Old Vic).
Joel Trill (Voice & Dialect Coach) theatre includes A Strange Loop (Barbican), Tambo & Bones (Stratford East / Actors Touring Company), Patriots (Noël Coward Theatre), House of Ife (Bush Theatre), The 47th, A Number, and Bagdad Cafe (The Old Vic), All My Sons and Love Letters (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch), Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (Orange Tree Theatre), J’Ouvert (Harold Pinter Theatre), Mirror Mirror and Master Harold and the Boys (National Theatre), Rockets and Blue Lights (Royal Exchange Theatre), Trojan Horse (Battersea Arts Centre) and A Taste of Honey (Trafalgar Studios). TV includes Call the Midwife and Murder is Easy (BBC), The Crown and Queen Charlotte (Netflix), The Ballad of Renegade Nell (Disney+), The White Lotus (HBO), Riches and The Confessions of Frannie Langton (ITV), Gangs of London (Sky) and Citadel (Amazon Prime). Film credits include Drift, My Name is Leon, Empire, The Ancestors and Queen & Slim.
Wabriya King (Production Dramatherapist) theatre credits include A Strange Loop (Barbican Centre), Tambo & Bones (Theatre Royal Stratford East) and Family Tree (also Brixton House) (Actors Touring Company), School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Lyric Hammersmith), Matthew Bourne’s Romeo & Juliet (New Adventures / Sadler’s Wells / UK Tour), August in England (Bush Theatre), Julius Caesar, Falkland Sound and The Empress (RSC), Romeo & Juliet and The Secret Life of Bees (Almeida Theatre), For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy (New Diorama Theatre / Royal Court / Apollo Theatre), Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Complicité / Barbican / UK Tour), Blue (ENO), Further than the Furthest Thing (Young Vic), Bootycandy (Gate Theatre), Blues for an Alabama Sky (National Theatre) and Hamilton (Victoria Palace Theatre). Film credits include Empire of Light and Chevalier.
