The Stage

Nicolas Kent to direct premiere of The Riots as part of his final Tricycle season

Published Thursday 22 September 2011 at 15:08 by Natalie Woolman

Nicolas Kent is to direct a play about the riots as part of his final season as artistic director of the Tricycle Theatre.

The play, by Gillian Slovo, is based on evidence about the disturbances that occurred earlier this year, including tweets, police accounts and interviews with politicians, community leaders, victims and onlookers about how and why they happened.

Kent and Slovo both worked on Guantanamo – Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, which was performed in the Houses of Parliament and Capitol Hill in Washington as well as at the Tricycle and in the West End.

The Riots will run from November 17 to December 10, with press night on November 22. Casting to be announced.

The season will also include a new production of Stones in His Pockets directed by Indhu Rubasingham, which will run from December 15, and The Bomb – A Partial History in Two Parts which looks at nuclear warfare from 1940 to the present day, including current debates around non-proliferation and the UK’s Trident programme.

Kent will direct The Bomb – A Partial History, which has been written by playwrights Lee Blessing, Ryan Craig, John Donnelly, David Greig, Elena Gremina, Amit Gupta, Zinnie Harris, Ron Hutchinson, Diana Son and Colin Teevan. Audiences can watch the two parts on consecutive nights or during the afternoon and evening on a weekend. It will run from February 9, 2012 and the venue is also staging a festival – The Tricycle Goes Nuclear – from the same date, which will include film and education programmes.

Kent is due to leave the Tricycle in 2012, having held the artistic director role at the theatre for 28 years.