Jermyn Street Theatre, winner of the 2021 Stage Award for Fringe Theatre of the Year, is stepping up to the mark again this year with a three month celebration of drama, music, poetry and comedy.
A blast of fresh summer air after a long winter
The Footprints Festival will run from 17th May-1st August with matinees, evening and late night shows. It has been specifically created to give opportunities to as many companies as possible, as they emerge from the frustrations of lockdown.
Performances will be given to socially-distanced audiences of twenty-five in the auditorium with simultaneous transmission available on-line. To encourage people to engage as fully as possible in the season, Festival Passes will be available offering significant discounts on all tickets.
The aim is to champion theatre and the people who make it, with around 300 freelancers participating in the celebration. The programme will be arranged in six strands: drama, solo, cabaret, classics, showcases and poetry, designed, according to the theatre ‘to make us laugh, think and perhaps shed a tear or two’. The full schedule of 43 shows will be announced in the coming weeks, but an idea of what’s in store is revealed in three plays that will be at the heart of the festival.
Biyi Bandele’s absurdist comedy Two Horsemen, about two men who find themselves in limbo, will receive its first revival since it won the Best New Play Award at the 1994 New Plays Festival. Lone Flyer, by Ade Morris, tells the story of pioneer pilot Amy Johnson. It will be directed by Lucy Betts whose sensitive production at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury received national acclaim. Mr and Mrs Nobody was adapted by Keith Waterhouse from George and Weedon Grossmith’s comic Victorian novel about the daily events in the lives of London clerk, Charles Pooter, his wife Carrie and son William Lupin as they are visited by a succession of friends and acquaintances over a period of 15 months. It should prove to be wonderfully light-hearted fun.
Looking forward to this exciting new venture, Tom Littler, Artistic Director of Jermyn Street Theatre, said, “Footprints Festival will be a blast of fresh summer air after a long winter!” And we say, Amen to that!
