Watermill Theatre

Box office

01635 46044

The Watermill Theatre, Bagnor, Newbury, RG20 8AE. A map is here. A seating plan is here.

Next

Heroes, 11th February to 20th March
By Gerald Sibleyras, translated by Tom Stoppard. Tom Stoppard’s comedy hit of 2005 was his translation of Heroes, which follows three WW1 veterans Henri, Gustave and Phillippe’s preparations for escaping a French military hospital. There are a few things that stand in their way including poor health and Sister Madeleine.

Raising Voices, 29th to 31st March
Raising Voices, a festival of new writing, invites writers of all cultures and backgrounds to submit a new play for the Watermill which, celebrates the diversity of the English language and the visual and emotional dynamics of live theatre. Started by Jill Fraser in 2003, Raising Voices will see a short list of plays performed in staged readings by professional actors over 3 days at the theatre.

The Three Musketeers, 7th to 10th April
Beth Flintoff, The Watermill Learning and Participation Director, adapts and directs her first show for The Watermill Senior Youth Theatre. There are now 150 young people participating in Watermill Youth Theatre activities every week.

Bronte, 15th April to 22nd May
A new collaboration between The Watermill and Shared Experience, one of the UK’s most respected and successful theatre companies, revives Bronte, an extraordinary play which delves into one of literature’s most famous families. Originally premiered in 2005, this new production, will give Director Nancy Meckler an extended rehearsal period which allows time for training and exploration for the young actors. Polly Teale’s gripping interpretation of the Bronte legend is much anticipated.

Gulliver’s Travels, 25th to 29th May
By Jonathan Swift, in a new adaptation by Toby Hulse. Directed by Ade Morris. The Watermill’s rural touring scheme goes from strength to strength. This new adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels by the South West dramatist Toby Hulse uses only three actors, a dinner table and a mountain of books, in a tour de force of theatrical storytelling. The Spitting Image of its time, Gulliver’s Travels remains as viciously funny and as outrageously truthful as the day that it was first published.

Daisy Pulls It Off, 3rd June to 10th July
By Denise Deegan. Orla O’Loughlin has become a favourite director with Watermill audiences. Her two previous shows, Black Comedy and Blithe Spirit, showed a confident comic touch. Her new challenge is the Olivier award winning Daisy Pulls It Off, a mad-cap look at the jolly hockey classes of a 1920s girls' public school.

For more details

see the Watermill's web site at www.watermill.org.uk.

Review of James and the Giant Peach

26th November 2009 to 3rd January 2010.

From the Newbury Weekly News.

Refreshingly simple Dahl's wonderful prose finds space in The Watermill's James and the Giant Peach James and the Giant Peach, at The Watermill, until Sunday, January 3 A simple stage set, a small cast of actor-musicians, and unfussy but effective props and costumes meant that this production of Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach gave the author's wonderful prose the space to be enjoyed, and was the perfect introduction for young theatre-goers to The Watermill's way of working. The adventures of the lively, ingenious seven-year-old James and his friends, a group of oversized and anthropomorphic bugs, were unfettered as their home, the titular peach - expanded by the same magical "marvellous things" accidentally digested by the insects - bounced away from the prison of James' childhood home, to travel by earth, sea and air, taking them to a bright future in New York. Unbowed by years under the horrendous parentage of his aunts Spiker and Sponge - possibly the cruellest relatives in children's literature, despite stiff competition -James encouraged the fatherly Old-Green-Grasshopper, vain Centipede, the glamorous Miss Spider and Ladybird, and cynical Brummie Earthworm to use their individual talents to escape from a number of sticky situations, such as harnessing seagulls with spider thread to lift the peach away from circling sharks. With much of the action taking place inside an aptly nautical-looking peach stone, it was Dahl's words (adapted for stage by David Wood), along with the physicality and musicality of the cast that bought the external dramas to life, while the peach ripening on the branch was depicted through a series of unfolding parasols. Composer Simon Slater's songs and music integrated well into the story and allowed it to bounce along as merrily as the peach on its thrilling journey from tree to sea. Just as the audience might have felt that the only thing missing was the 'ooh' factor, James' underwater rescue of Centipede resulted in an encounter with a giant inflatable octopus which emitted not only 'oohs' but a spontaneous round of applause from the audience - followed by another when the battle to contain it back under the stage resulted in more of a struggle for cast members than expected. It may be proper theatre, but a short running time and pacy storyline mean that all but the tiniest of tinies should remain enthralled throughout - the four-plus age guideline and no under-threes rule is probably about right. However, for primary-aged children upwards, James & the Giant Peach is a refreshing and zesty antidote to all those overripe and bloated pantomimes. CATRIONA REEVES AND GEORGE AINSWORTH

Reviews in the Archive

Educating Rita (October 2009)
Spend Spend Spend! (July 2009)
Blithe Spirit (May 2009)
Bubbles (April to May and September to October 2009)
A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice (March 2009)
Life X 3 (January 2009)
Matilda and Duffy's Stupendous Space Adventure (November 2008)
The Sirens' Call (November 2008)
Our Country's Good (September 2008)
See Newbury Dramatic Society for a review of The Recruiting Officer (October 2008)
Sunset Boulevard (July 2008)
Boxford Masques - Knight and Day (July 2008)
Black Comedy and The Bowmans (May 2008)
London Assurance (April 2008)
Micky Salberg's Crystal Ballroom Dance Band (April 2008 and on tour)
Great West Road (March 2008)
Merrily We Roll Along (March 2008)
Honk! (November 2007)
Rope (September 2007)
Martin Guerre (July 2007)
Twelfth Night (June 2007)
The Story of a Great Lady (April and September 2007, and on tour)
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (April 2007)
For Services Rendered (March 2007)
Plunder (January 2007)
The Snow Queen (November 2006)
Peter Pan in Scarlet (October 2006)
The Taming of the Shrew (September 2006 and on tour in 2007)
Hot Mikado (July 2006 and September 2009)
Boxford Masques: The Crowning of the Year (July 2006)
Hobson's Choice (May 2006)
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (April 2006)
Tartuffe (February 2006)
The Jungle Book (November 2005)
The Gilded Lilies (October 2005)
Copenhagen (September 2005)
The Garden of Llangoed (September 2005 and September 2006)
Thieves' Carnival (July 2005)
The Shed (July 2005)
Mack and Mabel (May 2005)
The Odyssey (May 2005)
Broken Glass (April 2005)
The Winter's Tale (January 2005)
Arabian Nights (December 2004)
See Newbury Dramatic Society for a review of Whose Life is it Anyway? (November 2004)
Multiplex (November 2004)
Neville's Island (September 2004)
The Comedian (September 2004 and March 2005)
Raising Voices Again (September 2004)
Pinafore Swing (July 2004)
The Venetian Twins (May 2004)
The Gentleman from Olmedo (April 2004)
Mr & Mrs Schultz (March 2004 and on tour)
Sweeney Todd (February 2004)
The Emperor and the Nightingale (November 2003)
See Newbury Dramatic Society for a review of An Ideal Husband (November 2003)
A Star Danced (September 2003)
The Fourth Fold (September 2003)
The Last Days of the Empire (July 2003)
Accelerate (July 2003)
Dreams from a Summer House (May 2003)
The Triumph of Love (April 2003)
Gigolo (March 2003)
Raising Voices (March 2003)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (February 2003)
The Firebird (November 2002)
Ten Cents a Dance (September 2002)
Dancing at Lughnasa (July 2002)
Love in a Maze (June 2002)
Fiddler on the Roof (April 2002)
I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls (March 2002 and March 2006)
Only a Matter of Time (February 2002)
Cinderella and the Enchanted Slipper (November 2001)
Piaf (October 2001)
The Merchant of Venice (October 2001)
Witch (September 2001)
The Clandestine Marriage (August 2001)
The Importance of Being Earnest (May 2001)
Gondoliers (March 2001)
Rose Rage (February 2001)
Carmen (July 2000)