Warehouse Digital
Warehouse Digital
Warehouse Digital
A New Wolsey Theatre production.
‘The Red Lion’ is a gripping changing-room drama written by multi-award-winning writer Patrick Marber and was a smash-hit in the West End. The play takes us into the heart of a struggling semi-pro-league football club trying to make ends meet. It’s a world far from the glamour, millionaires, celebrities and 24-hour media attention of the Premier League.
Things look up when a gifted young player appears out of nowhere, but he soon finds himself stuck between the conflicting ambitions of the kit man – a former club legend, who sees him as the key to returning to former glory days – and the manager, desperate to deliver success with his mind on the money. Loyalty, trust, morals and friendship are pushed to the very edge, leading them to ask is this really the opportunity everyone’s been waiting for?
This brilliant, sensitive and funny play takes us beyond the pitch and into the changing room where banter, laughter, despair and raw emotions are exposed, relationships explode and conflict simmers between three generations as they fight for their individual goals and obsessions, desperate with the want to be a part of something.
Running time: 1 hour & 40 minutes
'The Red Lion' has an age guidance of 14+ and includes language and situations authentic to the characters and worlds portrayed.
This includes very frequent, very strong language; moments of and references to abuse, violence and blood; needles, drug and alcohol abuse and one moment of suicidal language.
The show also contains flashing lights, smoke and haze.
To read the detailed Content Warning for the show, please click the link below. Please do note that it contains spoilers.
Theatre credits: After Life (National Theatre), The Living Newspaper: Edition 5 (Royal Court), Half Full (Richard Burton Company/Royal Court), We Need to Talk About Grief (R&D) (Donmar Warehouse), Tartfuffe (Richard Burton Company).
Film credits: The Shepherd (Disney+)
Television credits: Silo (Apple TV)
Crispin has recently filmed the new HULU series Black Cake; Disclaimer (Apple) and the new Lionsgate feature The Lesson.
Television includes: The Crown (Netflix), Stonehouse (ITV), Strike: Troubled Blood (BBC), The Midwich Cuckoos (Sky) Save Me II (Sky), 6 Wives of Henry VIII (BBC), Victoria (ITV) The Musketeers (BBC), Shetland (BBC), Silent Witness (BBC) Mistresses (BBC), Derailed (BBC), Down to Earth (BBC), Sins (BBC), Princess of Thieves (Granada), Vanity Fair (BBC), A Christmas Carol (C4), The Passion (BBC), Thicker Than Water (BBC), Between The Lines (BBC), French and Saunders (BBC), Coronation Street (Granada), Eurocops (C4), Alice In Wonderland (BBC).
Film includes: The Lesson, Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express, Skyfall, Exodus, Isolation, Esther Kahn, Out of Depth, Angry Earth, and Gregor Samsa in the Oscar-winning Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
Theatre includes: The Entertainer (Kenneth Branagh Company at The Garrick Theatre), The Open House (Ustinov, Bath /Print Room), Hedda Gabler (English Touring Theatre at the Donmar), The Servant (Lyric Hammersmith), Joking Apart (Greenwich), The True Story of Ah Q (Soho Poly), Rutherford and Son, The Village Fete, My Very Own Story (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), The Glass Menagerie (Cambridge), Twelfth Night (Oldham), A Family Affair, Kes (Contact, Manchester), Class K (Royal Exchange, Manchester), Class Enemy (Library, Manchester), Spring Awakening, Peter Pan (Crucible, Sheffield), The Tempest, Measure for Measure, King Lear (Kick Theatre Company).
For the National Theatre: The Wind in The Willows, The Machine Wreckers, Othello, An Inspector Calls (NT West End).
Alastair trained at the Manchester School of Theatre and continues in further training with the Impulse Theatre Company and Mixing Networks.
Television credits include: Gary Brandon in Silent Witness, Lee Banks in Line of Duty Season 5&6, Donald Douglas in The Machines That Built The World, Casualty, Hollyoaks, Coronation Street and The Marchioness Disaster.
Theatre credits include: Marcus in Standing At The Sky’s Edge (Sheffield Crucible and National Theatre - Best New Musical Winner ’23 Olivier Awards), Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice (Stafford Shakespeare Festival), Closer Than Ever, Early Birds, Our Boys (Edinburgh Fringe 2018), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Playhouse, West End), Strangers on a Train (Gielgud Theatre), Shrek the Musical (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), The Go-Between (Trafalgar Studios), What Every Woman Knows (Manchester Royal Exchange), Laughter in the Rain – The Neil Sedaka Story (UK Tour), After the Blue (Jermyn St Theatre), Muswell Hill (White Bear – nominated for Best Actor, 2014 Off West End Awards), The Importance of Being Earnest (Baron's Court Theatre) and Dangerous Corner (Landor Theatre).
Films include: Richard Moss in Testing Point (Project Wilde Ltd), Mad To Be Normal (Gizmo Films), The Innocent (White Jacket Productions), Make Aliens Dance (Annex Films), and Two Sides (Mixing Networks Productions - nominated for Best Actor in the 2019 International Film Festival).
Alastair also works regularly as a voice over artist and has recorded several episodes of Silver Street – a radio soap opera for the BBC, as well as the recurring role of Ethan Miller in animation series – MINT for Apple TV+.
Helen’s credits as a Sound designer includes: The Red Lion (New Wolsey Theatre); SAFEHOUSE (Abbey Theatre); Black Sheep (Curious Directive, Norwich); Face to Face (Marian Consort at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh Festival 2024); Beauty & The Beast, Dick Whittington and his Cat & Hansel and Gretel (CBeebies Pantomime); Horseplay (The Whitings on the Wall, Norwich); Medicine, Arlington and Ballyturk (Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival); MAM (Teac Damsa Ireland); The Nico Project (Manchester International Festival); Wirewalk (Norfolk and Norwich Festival Launch 2019); Grief is the Thing with Feathers (Complicité : Wayward); The Second Violinist and The Last Hotel (Landmark Productions and Irish National Opera); Salomé (RSC Swan); The Suicide (Lyttelton, National Theatre); The Village (Theatre Royal Stratford East); All My Sons & Much Ado about Nothing (Queens Theatre, Hornchurch); You for Me for You (Royal Court Upstairs); The Matchbox (Galway International Arts Festival); The Summerbook, ‘Twas the Night before Christmas and 1001 Nights (Unicorn Theatre); Deep Blue Sea, All My Sons and Of Mice and Men (Watermill Theatre); NHS@70, Cuckooed and Bravo Figaro! (Mark Thomas at the Traverse); Macbeth (Cheek by Jowl); A Great Night Out, Wolfschild & Once Upon a Castle (Wildworks)
Podcasts and Projects include: Through the Cracks, F**ked Up Bedtime Stories, That Podcast (ETT); Living Newspaper Edition 7 (Royal Court); Keywords Podcast & Lockdown Check Up Podcast (Mark Thomas); Re/Collect250 (Norfolk Norwich Festival), Unlocking our Sound Heritage (Norfolk Records Office): Enda Walsh’s - Rooms Installation Series (Galway International Arts Festival).
Helen was awarded Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards - Best Soundscape 2022 for Medicine and Best Sound Design 2014 for Ballyturk.
Zoë is a designer for stage and film based in New York and London. US venues include: Here Arts Centre, Ars Nova (AntFest), The Wild Project, The Sheen Center, Colgate University and Brown/Trinity Rep.
In the UK, she has designed for venues such as The Orange Tree, Queens Theatre Hornchurch, The Marlowe Canterbury, Arts Ed, Jermyn Street Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, Mercury Theatre Colchester, The New Diorama, Shoreditch Town Hall, Warwick Arts Centre, Lamda, The Bunker, The Royal Court and The Director’s Programme at the Young Vic.
Recent projects include: designing the winning play Barrier(s), for the New Views Festival in the Dorfman Theatre, and acting as Design Associate for the Connections Festival 2022 at the National Theatre.
Selected production design credits include: Assisted Living (web series, NYC) and Pear (music video, NYC).
Two of her designs were selected for World Stage Design 2022 in Calgary, one of which (Tomorrow Will Take Care of Itself) took first place in the Emerging Designer category. A winner of the 2019 Linbury Prize for Stage Design, she has twice been a finalist in the Off West End Awards for best Set Design, most recently in 2022 for Deciphering. She is a recipient of the 2022 JMK Development Award, with Director Emerald Crankson.
She is a graduate of the MFA Design Programme at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and holds a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea School of Art, University of the Arts London.
Patrick Marber was born in London in 1964. He is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director. His work has won Evening Standard, Olivier, Time Out, New York and London Critics’ Circle and Writers’ Guild Awards and received BAFTA, British Comedy and Royal Television Society Awards. His screenplays have been nominated for Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Awards. He received the British Independent Film Award for Notes on a Scandal. His second play, Closer, has been produced in more than 200 cities across the world.
Other plays include: Dealer’s Choice, Howard Katz, The Red Lion, Three Days in the Country, The Musicians, The School Film, After Miss Julie, Don Juan in Soho. Stage adaptations include versions of Hedda Gabler, Exit The King and The Beaux’ Stratagem (NT) and Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ (Donmar).
Screenplays include: Closer (Columbia Pictures); Notes on a Scandal (Fox Searchlight Pictures); Old Street (Film4/Box Films); Love You More (Film4). Patrick is the co-creator (with Peter Curran) of Bunk Bed (BBC Radio 4).
As a director his productions include Dealer’s Choice (NT/Vaudeville); After Miss Julie (BBC); Closer (NT/Lyric/Music Box NY); ‘1953’ (Almeida); Blue Remembered Hills (NT); The Old Neighborhood (Royal Court); The Caretaker (Comedy); Howard Katz (NT); Three Days in the Country (NT); Travesties (Menier/Apollo/Broadway); Don Juan in Soho (Wyndhams); Venus in Fur (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Exit The King (NT).
Most recently, he directed Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt at the Wyndhams Theatre, which won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2020. Leopoldstadt opened on Broadway in October 2022 and in June 2023 Patrick won the Tony Award for Best Director of a Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Director of a Play.
Douglas is an award-winning theatre-maker and cultural leader. He was born in Suffolk, grew up in Essex, read Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham and was awarded a bursary on the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme to Salisbury Playhouse where he trained as a director. He is the Chief Executive/Artistic Director of the New Wolsey Theatre, was the Artistic Director of Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (2015 - 2022), founder of the national touring theatre company Transport (2010 - 2017), and an associate of Complicité (2004 - 2010).
'Well observed, sharply witted... An entertaining and thought-provoking evening'
What an exceptional evening's entertainment. Wonderfully acted and kept us totally absorbed for the full hour and forty minutes. It was such a great shame that the audience was bigger.
ian hughes
Wow! That was amazing. Brilliant. Wonderful, faultless acting. So much script learned & excellently presented. We were fully engaged throughout it all. I am not really a football fan either!
Margaret
A sensitive and thought provoking production superbly acted by the wonderful cast. Don’t miss it!
Patricia Dawkins