Writer – Howard Barker
Howard Barker is an internationally renowned dramatist, whose first plays were performed at the Royal Court and by the Royal Shakespeare Company. His theatre is characterised by its poetic, non-naturalistic form and inhibits worlds of contradiction, suffering and sexual passion. Barker is also a poet and theorist of theatre, whose Theatre of Catastrophe defines a new form of tragedy for our times.
Director – Gerrard McArthur
Gerrard McArthur has worked as both an actor and director for The Wrestling School, (TWS), the company dedicated to producing the work of Howard Barker. His TWS direction includes Barker’s The Dying of Today at the Arcola; and Hurts Given and Received at Riverside Studios (best director nomination 2010 Off West End Awards); last year he co-directed with Howard Barker a french-language production of Barker’s ‘Innocence’, in Lyons. Other direction includes: Heiner Muller’s Quartet at the Queen’s, Adelaide; and, with Stewart Laing, directing Leigh Bowery in The Difficulty of Sexpressing Oneself, at Glasgow Tramway. As a TWS actor he played the protagonist Priest in Barker’s 8-hour epic The Ecstatic Bible at Adelaide International Festival & Vanya in (Uncle) Vanya at Goebbel’s favourite (Art Deco) theatre, the Hebbel Theatre, Berlin; Other acting credits include playing Prospero in The Tempest for Romanian director Silviu Purcurete there, taking it on to the Tokyo Globe, and further north in Japan; The Hanging Man for Improbable at Sydney Opera House; and Coward’s Present Laughter. Gerrard has appeared in various TV and Radio productions, and has also narrated many documentaries on the History and Discovery Channels. Films include The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, John Maybury’s Big Love, and Derek Jarman’s The Last of England. Gerrard has also done a lot of work with the Glasgow Citizens, where he was Strindberg’s The Father, and took the lead in plays by Pinter, Gertrude Stein, Heiner Muller and Botho Strauss.
Jane Bertish
Theatre includes: A Family Affair (Arcola Theatre); Richard III; Duchess of Malfi (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Paper Dolls (Tricycle Theatre); A Round Heeled Woman (Riverside Studios / West End); The Syndicate (Chichester Festival Theatre / Tour); House Of Bernarda Alba (Almeida Theatre); Tales From Vienna Woods (National Theatre); The White Devil; The Milktrain Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (Lyric Hammersmith); Gertrude the Cry; Hurts Given And Received (Riverside Studios); The Last Supper; 7 Lears; Golgo (Royal Court); Mother Courage (Mermaid Theatre); Phaedra; Conversations with my Father (Old Vic); Anatol; Walpurgisnacht (Gate Theatre); A Bright Room Called Day (Bush Theatre); Oedipus (Lyceum Theatre); Judith (Traverse / BAC / European Tour) plus many productions for The Glasgow Citizens Theatre and Birmingham Rep.
Television includes: Sword Of Honour; Sensitive Skin; Black Books; Rosemary’s Baby; Emerald City.
Film includes: Dance With a Stranger; Paperhouse; Parker; The Reef; The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone.
William Chubb
Theatre includes: King Lear (Old Vic); Lawrence After Arabia (Hampstead Theatre); Waste; Othello; Scenes from an Execution; The London Cuckolds; The Madness of George III (National Theatre); Richard II (Shakespeare’s Globe); Great Britain (National Theatre / West End); The Vortex; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Love’s Labours Lost (Rose Theatre, Kingston); Mary Shelley (Shared Experience); Eden End (Northampton Royal and Derngate / ETT); Yes, Prime Minister (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End); Gilbert is Dead (Shining Man); The History Boys (National Theatre / West End); The Sea; Hayfever (Theatre Royal Haymarket); You Never Can Tell (Theatre Royal Bath / West End); Galileo’s Daughter; Man and Superman; Design for Living; Fight for Barbara (Peter Hall Company); Whose Life is it Anyway? (West End); Justifying War (Tricycle Theatre); Ghosts (English Touring Theatre); Homebody Kabul; A Raisin in the Sun (Young Vic); He Stumbled (Wrestling School).
Television includes: Close to the Enemy; My Baby; Breathless; Edge of Heaven; Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell; Law and Order; Silk; The Bill; A Very British Sex Scandal; Phoo Action; Absolute Power; Cherished; Midsomer Murders; Trial and Retribution; A & E; Extremely Dangerous; The Ambassador.
Film includes: 6 Days; Adrift in Soho; Tezz; Veer; Affair of the Necklace; Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War; Milk; The Woodlanders.
James Clyde
Theatre includes: Cymbeline; King Lear; Matilda; Romeo and Juliet; Comedy of Errors; Twelfth Night (RSC); The God of Carnage; School for Wives (Nuffield Theatre); Dangerous Lady (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Illusion (Southwark Playhouse); Hamlet; The Art of Random Whistling (Young Vic); As You Like It; Hedda Gabler; Tobaccoland; The Candidate; Misfits; The Tempest; A Taste of Honey; Macbeth (Manchester Royal Exchange); Twelfth Night (National Theatre); Single Spies (The Watermill); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe); Caucasian Chalk Circle (Shared Experience); The Sea At Night (Hackney Empire); Days of Significance (RSC / Tricycle); Absolute Beginners (Lyric Hammersmith); A Model Girl (Greenwich Theatre); Jane Eyre (Shared Experience Tour / Trafalgar Studios / Young Vic); I Just Stopped By To See The Man (Octagon Theatre); The Lucky Ones; The Eleventh Commandment; A Going Concern (Hampstead Theatre); Closer to Heaven (Really Useful Workshop); The Ecstatic Bible (Adelaide Festival); Scenes From An Execution (Barbican / Tour); Dreaming (West End); The Castle (Riverside Studios / Tour); Hang (National Theatre Studio); Home Free (Finborough Theatre); Resistance; Mr Thomas (Old Red Lion); Hated Nightfall; Wounds to the Face (Royal Court); Jack’s Out (Bush Theatre); A Hard Heart; All for Love (Almeida Theatre); The Gentleman from Olmeido (Gate Theatre); The White Devil (Cockpit Theatre).
Television includes: Leonardo; Above Suspicion: Deadly Intent; The Bill; New Tricks; Boudicca; London Bridge; Made in Heaven; Mr Thomas; Cluedo; Maigret; In Suspicious Circumstances; Between the Lines; Back Up; The Stairwell.
Film includes: King Lear; Cymbeline; Anonymous; The Honeytrap; Cheese; Croupier; Your Night Tonight; Prick Up Your Ears; Glitch.
Stella Gonet
Theatre includes: Human Animals; Hope (Royal Court); A Further Education; Hilda (Hampstead Theatre); For Services Rendered (Chichester Festival Theatre); Handbagged (Tricycle Theatre / West End); Before the Party (Almeida Theatre); Top Girls (Trafalgar Studios); Women, Power and Politics (Tricycle Theatre); Memory of Water (West End); Skylight (National Theatre / West End); Measure for Measure; After Easter; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Divine Gossip; Three Sisters; The Revenger’s Tragedy; Jew of Malta; Fashion; Heresies; The Archbishop’s Ceiling (RSC); Racing Demon; The Shaughraun; The Voysey Inheritance; Hamlet; True Dare Kiss; Command or Promise (National Theatre); Cyrano De Bergerac (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Points of Departure (Traverse / Tour); Trafford Tanzi (Mermaid Theatre); Slab Boy Trilogy (Traverse / Royal Court); Tonight We Celebrate (Dundee Rep).
Television includes: Humans; Siblings; Silk; Father Brown; Hacks; Lewis; Mo Mowlem; Holby City; Rebus; Roman Mysteries; Persuasion; Dalziel and Pascoe; Mysterious Murders; Where The Heart Is; Murder in Suburbia; Taggart; Inspector Lynley Mysteries; Foyle’s War; Midsomer Murders; The Secret; Verdict; Supply and Demand; The Crow Road; Trip Trap; House of Eliott; The Advocates; The Common Pursuit; Heading Home; The Bill; Down where the Buffalo Go; Casualty.
Film includes: How I Live Now; Dirty Bomb; Nicholas Nickleby; Stalin; For Queen and Country.
Liam Joseph
Theatre Includes: Game (The Courtyard Theatre); That Face (Royal Exchange); The Frontline (Soho Theatre); Pluto (Baron’s Court Theatre).
Television Includes: Bill Nye Saves the World.
Film Includes: Our Little Haven; The Bear; Nation Down.
Felix Rehnquist
Swedish actor, Felix Rehnquist, is a theatre newcomer with credits including foreign films in Swedish and German. Since moving to London he’s been undertaking private tuition in voice, acting & Shakespeare.