The Silence of Snow: The Life of Patrick Hamilton is a visceral, kinetic solo show which vividly portrays the life of one of the great English writers of the inter-war years. Patrick Hamilton (1904 – 1962) was a dazzling success whilst still in his twenties, producing the hit plays Rope and Gaslight, and classic novels like Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky, Hangover Square and The Slaves of Solitude. But he was also an alcoholic, whose wit became increasingly mordant as his inner and outer worlds collapsed. Set in an electro-therapy clinic in the 1950s, and covering the entire sweep of Hamilton’s turbulent life, The Silence of Snow has gripped audiences wherever it has been performed. An arresting blend of original writing and extracts from Hamilton’s finest works, the play is a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of not confronting one’s own inner chaos. It is also a hugely witty and engaging tribute to a great English writer. Debuting at the Edinburgh Festival 2014, the play immediately transferred to a run at London’s Old Red Lion Theatre. In 2015 it has played a season at the brand new Rialto Theatre in Brighton (Hamilton’s home town), and will next be seen at London’s King’s Head Theatre in November 2015.

The play is directed by Linda Marlowe, an acting legend for her lengthy collaboration with Steven Berkoff. She is also a hugely-acclaimed solo actress (The World’s Wife, Berkoff’s Women), and currently a star of EastEnders.

Running time: 1 hour, no interval.

Tim Welling

The play is dedicated to the memory of Tim Welling, a close friend of Mark Farrelly and a beautiful soul. Tim committed suicide in December 2012. He was a huge support in both joyous and challenging times, a truly loyal friend, and is hugely missed. He was the first person to read The Silence of Snow, and always promised to be in the front row of the first performance, a promise he was unable to fulfil. At the end of every performance of the play, a collection has been undertaken for MIND, the mental health charity. To date this has raised over £2,000.

Below is a link explaining more of the relationship between Tim and The Silence of Snow.

http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/slave-of-solitude/

Reviews

**** “You won’t be able to take your eyes off this magnetic actor Mark Farrelly” The Times

**** “Farrelly’s performance is electric” What’s On Stage

***** “Clear and sharp-eyed characterisation and performance of a very high order” Edinburgh Guide

**** “Horrifyingly funny snapshot of the wit, novelist and playwright…brilliant” The Spectator

Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope is a solo show which debuted to rave reviews at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival. It immediately transferred to a run at the off-West End St. James Theatre, and has toured the UK ever since, visiting Greenwich, Dundee, Cardiff, Belfast and Brighton amongst many others.

Naked Hope depicts the legendary Quentin Crisp at two distinct phases of his extraordinary life. Firstly in the late 1960s in his filthy Chelsea flat (“Don’t lose your nerve: after the first four years the dirt won’t get any worse”). Here Quentin surveys a lifetime of degradation and rejection. Repeatedly beaten for being flamboyantly gay as early as the 1930s, but also ostracised simply for daring to live life on his own terms.

The second part of the play transitions the audience to New York in the 1990s. Here a much older Quentin, finally embraced by society, regales the audience with his sharply-observed, hard-earned philosophy on how to have a lifestyle: “Life will be more difficult if you try to become yourself. But avoiding this difficulty renders life meaningless. So discover who you are. And be it. Like mad!”.

Naked Hope is a glorious, truthful and uplifting celebration of a genuinely unique human being, and of the urgent necessity to be yourself. Originally produced by Seabright Productions Ltd, and directed by Linda Marlowe, who also directed The Silence of Snow.

Running time: 70 mins, no interval.

**** “An uncanny feat of resurrection…Farrelly’s mastery of his audience is total” Time Out

**** British Theatre Guide

**** Metro

**** The Stage

**** Edinburgh Guide

**** Scotsgay

**** The Public Reviews

**** Broadway Baby

Though Frankie Howerd (1917 – 1992) was and still is “one of Britain’s best-loved comedians”, he was in truth a radical, whose courage and innovation as a performer have too often been obscured by cosy nostalgia. The first stand-up to dispense with conventional punchlines and slick patter, instead he crafted stumbling, surreal streams of insecurity, based on his sense of inadequacy, disappointment and sheer unsuitability to the very job of being a comedian. In his refusal to ‘do’ comedy like everyone else had done, he predated fellow non-conformists like The Goons, Python and Eddie Izzard.

Celebrating Frankie’s impending centenary, Howerd’s End is a two-hander exploring both the development of Frankie’s comedy, and the clandestine union which made it all possible: his extraordinary forty-year relationship with his lover, friend and anchor Dennis Heymer, whose existence was strictly-guarded from the public in Frankie’s lifetime. More than simply a tribute show about a comedian who outlasted them all, Howerd’s End is also a piercingly honest love story about a relationship that tried to defy every odd – including death.

Howerd’s End will make its stage debut in 2016.