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PRESS RELEASE

How to Hold
Your Breath
MAXINE PEAKE CAST IN HOW TO HOLD YOUR BREATH
BY ZINNIE HARRIS AT THE ROYAL COURT, DIRECTED BY
VICKY FEATHERSTONE

FULL CASTING TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON
By Zinnie Harris
Directed by
Vicky Featherstone

DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND THE ACCLAIMED
2071 RETURNS TO JERWOOD THEATRE DOWNSTAIRS
FOR THREE SHOWS ONLY
Wed 04 Feb –
Sat 21 Mar 2015
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs
How to Hold Your Breath
“Because we live in Europe. Because nothing really bad happens.
The worst is a bit of an inconvenience. Perhaps not such a good mini
break. But really in the grand scheme of life, not so bad."
Mon – Sat 7.30pm
Sat matinees
(from 14 Feb) 2.30pm
Thurs matinee
(from 12 Feb) 2.30pm
Captioned performance
Tues 3 Mar, 7.30pm
Audio described
performance
Sat 21 Mar, 2.30pm
Press Night
Tues 10 Feb, 7pm
Age Guidance 14+
Royal Court Theatre
50-51 Sloane Square
London, SW1W 8AS
020 7565 5000
[email protected]
royalcourttheatre.com
Maxine Peake will return to The Royal Court to appear in Zinnie
Harris’ How to Hold Your Breath, with full casting to be announced
soon. The production, written by Zinnie Harris, will be directed by the
Royal Court’s Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone, premiering on 4
February at Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.
Maxine Peake is known for her varied career in film, on stage and
more recently as a playwright. Well known for her roles in BAFTA
nominated TV dramas such as Silk, The Village, The Street and
Shameless, her extensive theatre credits also include Mother Theresa
is Dead at The Royal Court, The Cherry Orchard, The
Relapse and Luther all at The National Theatre and most recently,
a radical
re-imagining
of William
Shakespeare's Hamlet
at
Manchester Royal Exchange. In 2014 Peake wrote her first radio play
Beryl: A Love Story on Two Wheels, which was broadcast on BBC
Radio 4 and subsequently adapted and produced at the West
Yorkshire Playhouse. Peake is also appearing in two films in Spring
2015, Hamlet (filmed during its run at the Royal Exchange) and Carol
Morley’s black comedy The Falling. Her previous film work includes
Private Peaceful, Run and Jump, Keeping Rosy and The Theory of
Everything.
Starting with a seemingly innocent one night stand, this darkly witty
and magical play from Zinnie Harris dives into our recent European
history, providing an epic look at the true cost of our principles and
how we live now.
The production is directed by Vicky Featherstone, designed by Chloe
2071
in co-operation with
Deutsches Schauspielhaus,
Hamburg
By Duncan
Macmillan and
Chris Rapley
Directed by
Katie Mitchell
Fri 23 Jan –
Sat 24 Jan 2015
Jerwood Theatre
Downstairs
Fri - Sat 7.30pm
Sat matinee
2.30pm on 24 Jan
Age Guidance 14+
Lamford, with lighting by Paul Constable, music by Stuart Earl and
movement by Ann Yee.
2071
What is happening to our climate? What do we know and how do we
know it? What could the future look like?
Ahead of How to Hold Your Breath at the Jerwood Theatre
Downstairs, Katie Mitchell (Ten Billion, Lungs, Wastwater, Waves),
Duncan MacMillan (Headlong’s 1984, Lungs) and Professor Chris
Rapley’s dynamic collaboration on climate change 2071 returns due
to popular demand for three performances. The production’s original
sell-out run played from 5 – 15 November 2014.
2071 addresses what many feel is the most important issue of our
time. It aims to present what science can tell us about our climate –
past, present and future - and what options lie before us. The Earth is
a hugely complex system, and our knowledge of it contains many
gaps, uncertainties and apparent contradictions. A highly emotive
issue, climate change needs to be addressed collectively, with mutual
respect and humility. Rapley, Macmillan and Mitchell will unwrap this
complex and contested issue in a unique piece of theatre.
For further information please contact Maisie Lawrence or Laura
Myers at The Corner Shop PR on 020 7831 7657 or email
[email protected] /[email protected]
-ENDS-
Royal Court Theatre
50-51 Sloane Square
London, SW1W 8AS
020 7565 5000
[email protected]
royalcourttheatre.com
Biographies:
Artistic Director of the Royal Court Vicky Featherstone directs. Since
she started at the Royal Court, her credits have included Dennis
Kelly’s The Ritual Slaughter of George Mastromas, Abi Morgan’s The
Mistress Contract and God Bless the Child which is currently playing
at Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. She opened her first season at the
Royal Court with Open Court – a festival of plays, ideas and events,
chosen by over 140 writers. At National Theatre of Scotland, her
credits included Enquirer (co-directed with John Tiffany), Appointment
With The Wicker Man and 27. Prior to Scotland, Vicky was Artistic
Director of Paines Plough.
Zinnie Harris’ credits at the Royal Court include Nightingale and
Chase. Her play The Wheel for the National Theatre of Scotland,
directed by Vicky Featherstone, won a Fringe First Award, jointly won
BOOKING
INFORMATION FOR
2071 AND HOW TO
YOUR BREATH
Tickets £32, £22, £16, £12
Mondays all seats £10
Concessions
£5 off top two prices*
(available for all matinees and for
How to Hold Your Breath in
advance until 13 February. For all
other performances available on a
standby basis on the day)
25s* and under £12 (limited
availability)
School and HE
Groups of 8+
50% off top two prices
(available Wed –Sat matinee,
plus midweek matinees)
Groups of 6+
£5 off top price
(available Wed –Sat matinee,
plus midweek matinees)
Access £12
*ID required.
(plus a companion at the
same rate)
All discounts subject
to availability.
Royal Court Theatre
50-51 Sloane Square
London, SW1W 8AS
020 7565 5000
[email protected]
royalcourttheatre.com
an Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Theatre Award and
was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her other recent
credits include The Message on the Watch and The Panel at the
Tricycle and A Doll’s House at the Donmar (adapt.). Her 2000 play
Further than the Furthest Thing won the Peggy Ramsay Foundation
Award, a Fringe First, and the John Whiting Award. On television, she
has written extensively for Spooks and is currently writing Tommy and
Tuppence based on the Agatha Christie series for David Walliams on
BBC1.
Writer and director Duncan Macmillan worked at the Royal Court for
the first time with 2071. Most recently, his production of 1984, created
with Robert Icke transferred to the West End after runs at the
Nottingham Playhouse and Almeida. He has worked with Katie
Mitchell on several occasions, including on The Forbidden Zone at
Salzburg Festival this summer, which will also be livestreamed at the
Barbican, on Lungs at the Schaubuehne in Berlin and on Reise durch
die Nacht at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. His play
Lungs for Paines Plough won Best Play at the Off West End Awards
and the CBS Outstanding Drama Award.
Director Katie Mitchell’s recent credits at the Royal Court include
Ten Billion, Simon Stephens’ Wastwater and Martin Crimp’s The City.
Her work with Duncan Macmillan includes The Forbidden Zone,
Lungs and Reise Durch die Nacht. Other credits include The Cherry
Orchard at the Young Vic, The Trial of Ubu Roi at Hampstead
Theatre, After Dido for English National Opera and the Young Vic,
and A Woman Killed With Kindness, Pains of Youth, some trace of
her, Waves, Three Sisters and The Seagull at the National Theatre.
Scientist Chris Rapley CBE is Professor of Climate Science at
University College London and Chair of the London Climate Change
Partnership. He was director of the Science Museum from 2007 to
2010 and awarded the Edinburgh Science Medal. He was Executive
Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme IGBP
from 1994 to 1998, and Director of the British Antarctic Survey from
1998 to 2007.
Notes to Editors:
Coutts is the Royal Court Theatre Innovation Partner
Coutts is the wealth division of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. Coutts
has a long history of supporting the arts going back 200 years, having
looked after the financial affairs of many famous clients connected with
the arts such as Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens and Chopin. In 1816,
Thomas Coutts married Harriot Mellon, a popular actress of her day, and
together they became partners of a number of London Theatres,
including the Drury Lane and the Royal Opera House. Coutts has even
featured in a number of artistic works including The Gondoliers by Gilbert
and Sullivan, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde. In the new millennium, this tradition has continued not only through
Coutts managing the finances of many of today’s top writers, actors and
musicians, but also through our arts sponsorship programme. We are
delighted to support The Royal Court and its diverse range of groundbreaking performances.
Royal Court Theatre
50-51 Sloane Square
London, SW1W 8AS
020 7565 5000
[email protected]
royalcourttheatre.com