Pat Barker’s Regeneration tours to Kings

Cast announced for stage adaptation of Craiglockhart-set novel

The world premiere tour of the stage adaptation of Pat Barker’s Booker-nominated novel, Regeneration, will arrive at the Edinburgh King’s at the end of September for a week-long stay.

Publicity image for Regeneration

Set in the Craiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh, in 1917, Regeneration concerns poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon, who was institutionalised in an attempt to undermine his public disapproval of the war.

Sassoon’s Army Psychiatrist, Dr William Rivers, was tasked with returning shell-shocked officers to the trenches. Yet under Sassoon’s influence, has become tormented by the morality of what is being done in the name of medicine.

Marking the centenary of the First World War, this new dramatisation of Pat Barker’s novel is adapted by Nicholas Wright, who won an Olivier for Vincent in Brixton in 2003.

It is a compellingly compassionate look at war and the devastating after effect it had on a generation of young men. The play examines the insanity of war with shocking clarity; a powerful anthem for the youth of the First World War and the lives of young soldiers today.

Tim Delap will play Siegfried Sassoon with Stephen Boxer as the psychiatrist Captain Rivers. Christopher Brandon will play poet Robert Graves, who persuaded the authorities not to court-martial Sassoon after the Times published his declaration against WW1 and Garmon Rhys will play the poet Wilfred Owen who was also at Craiglockhart.

Further casting is Simon Coates (Yealland/Anderson), Joshua Higgott (Campbell), David Morley Hale (Callan), Jack Monaghan (Billy Prior) and Lindy Whiteford (Nurse Rogers).

Direction will be by Simon Godwin, Associate Director of the Royal Court and an Associate Artist at Bristol Old Vic, with design by Alex Eales, lighting design by Lee Curran, music by Stuart Earl, sound by George Dennis, and movement by Struan Leslie.

Regeneration is a co-production between the Touring Consortium Theatre Company and Royal & Derngate Northampton, where the production will open.

Regeneration
King’s Theatre, 2 Leven Street EH3 9LQ
Tuesday 30 September – Saturday 4 October 2014
Evenings 7:30pm; Matinees Wed and Sat 2:30pm
Tickets from: www.edtheatres.com/regen
Tour website: www.theatrecloud.com

ENDS

Tags: King's Theatre, News, Nicholas Wright, Production News, Regeneration, Siegfried Sassoon, Stephen Boxer, Theatre, Tim Delap, Touring Consortium Theatre Company