GREAT news on The Greatest Play In The History Of The World for York Theatre Royal and Hull Truck Theatre audiences: revised dates are in place for Julie Hesmondhalgh’s one-woman show.
The debut tour of Ian Kershaw’s multi award-winning play should have opened at Hull Truck from January 29 and played York from February 16 to 20 as part of The Love Season. Lockdown 3 forced a delay, however, but now History will be made at York Theatre Royal from June 1 to 5 and at Hull Truck from June 7 to 12.
Tickets will go on sale in April at yorktheatreroyal.co,uk or 01904 623568 and at hulltruck.co.uk or 01482 323638, with the release dates yet to be announced.
Produced by Tara Finney Productions in association with Hull Truck Theatre, the tour will begin at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from May 18 to 22. All tour performances will be socially distanced with Covid-safe measures in place.
Winner of The Stage Edinburgh Award in 2018, The Greatest Play In The History Of The World…takes a heartfelt journey that starts and ends in a small, unassuming house on a quiet suburban road, as Coronation Street and Broadchurch alumnus Julie narrates the story of two neighbours and the people on their street, navigating her way through the nuances of life, the possibilities of science and the meaning of love.
Premiered at the Traverse Theatre at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe, the debut production transferred to Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre Studio in September 2018 and to London’s West End in December 2019. Now, the show has been adapted for the 2021 tour in light of these Covid times and performances will be housed in the larger performance spaces of each theatre.
The show is written by Julie’s husband, the Bruntwood Award-winning Ian Kershaw, who has written for Coronation Street, Cold Feet and Shameless, and reunites her with award-winning director Raz Shaw after working together on Margaret Edison’s Wit at the Royal Exchange in 2016.
Explaining the play’s genesis, Julie says: “I had a notion, a romantic notion, that Ian should write a one-woman show for me and we could tour it together into our dotage, like travelling troubadours (or something).
“A couple of Christmases ago, he kept disappearing to the cellar for an hour at a time, wrapping presents maybe, I thought. And then he presented me with this lovely thing: a beautiful play, a love story, but a universal one about learning in time what matters in the end, about leaving a mark.”
Let the show begin: a man wakes in the middle of the night to discover that the world has stopped. Through the crack in his bedroom curtains, he can see no signs of life at all, other than a light in the house opposite where a woman in an over-sized Bowie T-shirt stands, looking back at him. Over to you, Julie, from May 18.
Tickets for the SJT run are available at sjt.uk.com.
Yorkshire performance dates:
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, May 18 to 22, 7.30pm; 1.30pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday.
York Theatre Royal, June 1 to 5, 8pm; 3pm, Thursday and Saturday.
Hull Truck Theatre, June 7 to 12, 7.30pm; 2.30pm, Thursday and Saturday.