The Royal Exchange Theatre will offer an evening filled with romance and passion from one of the most famous love affairs of both the screen and stage this December with Brief Encounter.
Laura and Alec find each other in a busy railway station as everyone else just passes through. Falling passionately in love in a few stolen moments, they live and breathe a lifetime of epic emotions, reawakening everything they buried deep inside. Together, they find themselves in a bittersweet, hopelessly romantic, elegantly awkward love affair.
Directed by the Royal Exchange Theatre’s former Artistic Director Sarah Frankcom, this production of Emma Rice’s smash-hit stage adaptation of Noël Coward’s iconic original provides a unique and timely adaptation, marking the 50th anniversary of the playwright’s death.
The updated offering showcases for the first time a full complement of musical numbers drawn from Coward’s extraordinary songbook, accompanied by live jazz on stage arranged by Musical Director Matthew Malone.
Frankcom said: “Remembering Noël Coward in this 50th anniversary year allows us to really foreground his mastery as a remarkable songwriter responsible for delivering and performing some of the most iconic songs of the last 100 years.
“I’m really looking forward to creating a production that allows these enduring characters to inhabit the world of the song and lets us understand the inside of their hearts.”
Musical theatre performers Baker Mukasa and Hannah Azuonye will star opposite each other as the hopeless lovers Alec and Laura, supported by a five-strong multi-rolling cast of characters.
Frankcom added: “The audience watch the most extreme and intimate moments of a relationship played out in front of them, in a theatre, in the round, in a huge public space that is the Royal Exchange; there’s an exciting synergy that I can’t wait for audiences to experience.”
The show will span six weeks, from 2 December until January 2024. Tickets are available here.
Image: Baker Mukasa and Hannah Azuonye
