"All I’m talking about is this. Democracy. Having a say in your own affairs. Taking decisions about your own lives ...It’s not like that in England."
In a production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre to celebrate its 40th anniversary with a play written in the year the Finborough Theatre opened, the first new UK production in 40 years of Paul Kember’s award-winning 1980 comedy-drama Not Quite Jerusalem opens at the Finborough Theatre for a two week limited season on Tuesday, 14 September 2021 (Press Nights: Thursday, 16 September 2021 and Friday, 17 September 2021 at 7.30pm).
It's 1979, and Mike, Carrie, Pete and Dave have fled grim, divided England for the sunshine, sex, beer and bagels of a Israeli kibbutz. Only to find that what was supposed to be a working holiday is more like hard labour in 100-degree temperatures.
Pete and Dave soon alienate themselves with their foul-mouthed, high-spirited behaviour. Carrie desperately tries to fit in, but cannot relate to either her fellow-countrymen or the Israelis. Only Cambridge drop-out Mike seems able to articulate what it means to be young, conflicted, English, and a very long way from home. Until, that is, he meets no-nonsense kibbutznik Gila…
First presented at the Royal Court Theatre in 1980 where it broke box office records and revived there in 1982 (with casts including David Threlfall, Phil Davis, Kevin McNally, Selina Cadell and Bruce Alexander), Not Quite Jerusalem won first-time playwright Paul Kember the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award.
This production contains strong language.
As an intimate theatre venue, we are taking extra precautions to ensure the safety of performers, staff, and audience members during the current pandemic. We have reduced our audience capacity to 80% and temporarily increased our ticket prices to reflect this. Due to the size of our auditorium, we will ask audiences to wear a face covering throughout their visit including during the performance. We will also be asking audience members to provide the following evidence on arrival at the venue of either double vaccination, negative test results, or a recent infection. We will be reviewing these protocols every month and will lift them as soon as it is safe to do so. For full information, please click here.
Playwright Paul Kember won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for Not Quite Jerusalem, his first play. He spent five years as a journalist in Liverpool before training as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. As an actor, he was a founding member of the influential Joint Stock Theatre Company, for twenty years Britain’s leading experimental theatre company. He also appeared in over 75 television programmes including The Sweeney, Casualty, The Bill, Heartbeat, Pie in the Sky, Taggart, Newshounds, Common as Muck, and films including Agatha, The First Great Train Robbery, The Long Good Friday and An American Werewolf in London. His second play, Asylum, starred Sarah Miles at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and his third play, High Flyers, starred Hugh Grant, Simon Cadell, Glynis Barber and James Hazeldine. He has three children and lives in London.
Director Peter Kavanagh is an award-winning director for theatre, film, television and radio. Theatre includes The Labyrinth (Players Theatre, Dublin, Dublin Theatre Festival and Royal Court Theatre), A Door Must Be Either Open or Shut, and The Boor in his own translations from Chekhov (Chichester Theatre Festival), Love and the Art of War (King’s Head Theatre), the musical The Good Companions (Watford Colosseum), A Selfish Boy and After Prospero (INK Festival at the Tristan Bates Theatre), Vox Humana (Cockpit Theatre), Endgame (Players Theatre, Dublin), Play, and Mrs Warren’s Profession (Project Theatre, Dublin), The Exception and the Rule (Focus Theatre, Dublin), This Property is Condemned And Other Tennessee Williams Plays (Gate Theatre, Dublin) and Victims (Abbey Theatre, Dublin).
Film and Television includes Sightings of Bono, starring Bono, I Was the Cigarette Girl with Andrew Scott, which won an award at the Colombia Film Festival and a nomination at the Chicago Film Festival, and Sisters with Lisa Faulkner (BBC2).
Radio includes many award-winning productions for Drama on 3, from Sophocles through Shakespeare and Strindberg to Harold Pinter, James Graham and Howard Barker. Recent Ibsen productions include The Wild Duck in a version by Christopher Hampton with Samuel West and David Threlfall, Brand, Rosmersholm translated by Frank McGuinness with Helen Baxendale, and The Lady from the Sea with Cheryl Campbell. Shakespeare productions include Romeo and Juliet, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure featuring Simon Russell Beale, Emma Fielding, Siân Phillips, Saskia Reeves and Bill Nighy. Other notable casts include Benedict Cumberbatch and Lia Williams in Tom and Viv, Sorcha Cusack in Juno and the Paycock, Ian MacDiarmid in Volpone, Fiona Shaw in Playing with Fire, and Stephen Rea and Sinead Cusack in Ulysses. Prix Italia and many other drama awards include a Special Commendation for Landscape starring Harold Pinter and Penelope Wilton. He was nominated for Best Director by the BBC Audio Awards in 2017. He has also written and translated for stage and BBC Television drama.
The cast is:
Miranda Braun | Carrie
Trained at Drama Studio London.
Theatre includes Everything is Possible (Theatre Royal York), Sense and Sensibility (John Peel Centre for the Creative Arts, Stowmarket), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (European Tour), The Adventures of Sam Swallow, As You Like It (Edinburgh Festival), and The Confederacy of Wives, King Lear, and Ivanov (Drama Studio London).
Radio includes BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award 2018 Finalist, and 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Ailsa Joy | Gila
Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Theatre includes The Three Musketeers (Iris Theatre), The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Guildford Shakespeare Company), Bad Jews (Theatre Royal Haymarket, Theatre Royal Bath and National Tour), Timeplays (Hampton Court Palace), Berenice (The Space), Peer Gynt, ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, The White Darkness, Fast Track (North Wall Theatre, Oxford), Words by the Water (The Globe), The Crucible (Oxford Playhouse), The Siren’s Call, Mira, Mira (Watermill Theatre, Newbury), The Wind in the Willows (Polka Theatre), Cigarettes and Chocolate (Old Fire Station Theatre, Oxford), Landmines and Chewing Gum (Theatre Royal Windsor), Cymbeline, The Maids, The House of Special Purpose, Twelfth Night (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), Arabian Nights, Much Ado About Nothing (London Theatre at Sea) and Seeing Things (Shakespeare Week).
Television includes Plebs and The Royals.
Joe McArdle | Dave
Theatre includes Gaslight (Playground Theatre), Blink, Pizza Man (Baron’s Court Theatre), Gate (Cockpit Theatre), Apocalypse Cruise Ship Love Affair (Arts Theatre), Vampire Hospital Waiting Room (Edinburgh Festival), Lust in Space and Cold Call (INK Theatre Festival).
Radio includes A Kestrel for a Knave and Number One, The North Sea.
Matt Mella | Ami
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Checkpoint Chana.
Trained at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Theatre includes Faceless (Park Theatre), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Theatre N16) and The Doctor in Spite of Himself (Drayton Arms Theatre).
Film includes The Last Letter From Your Lover and Warhunt.
Television includes The Syndicate, Le Bureau des Légendes and Plus Belle La Vie.
Luke Nunn | Pete
Trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Theatre includes Stupid F***ing Bird and Motortown (Richard Burton Theatre, Cardiff).
Film includes The Road Dance.
Television includes Father Brown, Casualty, Pilgrim and The Last Kingdom.
Radio includes The Archers, Keeping the Wolf Out, Clash, Life is a Radio in the Dark, Luxembourg Gardens and Life Lines.
Ryan Whittle | Mike
Trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Theatre includes King Charles III (Almeida Theatre and Birmingham Rep), The Duchess of Malfi (Richard Burton Theatre, Cardiff), Ring Ring (Gate Theatre), Our Lords and Masters in their Human Form, August: Osage County, Amadeus (Northcott Theatre, Exeter), Herons (Edinburgh Festival), Punk Rock (Theatro Technis), What Happens Next Will ___ Your ___, The Watching (White Bear Theatre) and No Quarter (Network Theatre).
Film includes End of Term.
Radio includes Behind Closed Doors: More than Kissing, All These Things, The Haunting of M. R. James, An Ideal Husband, The Tragedy of Master Arden of Faversham, The Big Broadcast, Tommies, Nights at the Circus, Home Front, The Republicans, Rhoda and Pete Get Back on the Scene, First World Problems, The Archers, Wuthering Heights, The Merchant of Venice, From a Great Height, The Double, County Lines, Gudrun, Dot, Earthsea, The Steal and The Trials of CB King.
NOT QUITE JERUSALEM
by Paul Kember
Tuesday, 14 September - Saturday, 25 September 2021
The first new UK production for 40 years
Directed by Peter Kavanagh. Designed by Ceci Calf. Lighting by Ryan Stafford. Costume Design by Isobel Pellow. Presented by Cumulus Productions in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre.
Cast: Miranda Braun. Ailsa Joy. Joe McArdle. Matt Mella. Luke Nunn. Ryan Whittle.
