James Haddrell speaks on Greenwich theatre’s upcoming production of Philip Ridley’s Vincent River.

As I write this I’ve just finished the first day of rehearsal for our next in-house production – a revival of Philip Ridley’s Vincent River.

There are few moments more exciting than this one.

Selecting a play and securing the rights has its own particular buzz, as does auditioning for your cast and announcing the show to the public, but the first day that the actors are together in a room is magical.

For this show we are pairing Greenwich regular Kerrie Taylor with newcomer Brandon Kimaryo.

Kerrie is appearing in our Pinter double-bill and has previously been seen here in our Caryl Churchill collection Bad Nights and Odd Days, and in the unique theatrical experiment White Rabbit Red Rabbit.

Audiences will also know her from Hollyoaks, and more recently from ITV’s The Bay.

Brandon, on the other hand, is new to Greenwich and new to the industry as he has only just completed his training at Guildford School of Acting.

The two performers play Anita and Davey, the former a bereaved mother whose adult son Vincent has been murdered, and the latter a young man with some as yet unexplained connection to what happened.

Over the course of 90 minutes the story of what brought each to them to this point is gradually explained, and the two go through an astonishing emotional journey of suspicion, fragile trust, desperation, loss and reconciliation.

A first day typically starts with the cast reading the script aloud for anyone else involved – the design team (set, lighting, sound), the marketing department, production team etc. It’s often a very dry affair, but not today.

The electric tension that exists and evolves between these two characters was already palpable – I’ve definitely found the right cast for this astonishing play.

The next key moment in rehearsals will be early next week.

By then I hope to have a rough shape for the show, and Philip Ridley will be at rehearsals to answer questions from the company about his script.

This is a huge treat for all of us.

Writers are not always available for a meeting like this one, so having now confirmed Philip’s involvement in the show we can be confident that our command of this moving, challenging story will be complete, and audiences will see the show as Ridley intended.

Then after four weeks of rehearsal we move into technical rehearsals, putting everything we’ve prepared in the previous weeks on stage, in costume, under lights, with sound, and then to a couple of dress rehearsals.

All of this means that on June 23 we will open the show to our first audience.

There’s a huge amount of work to be done between now and then, but after our first day I think we’re off to the perfect start.

 

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