Martin frolics with Fran who is dazzled by Dominic who jumps on Jen who is blinded by Barry who ogles Odette who cops off with Chris who loves Lorraine who ruts with Rae who satisfies Sarah who notches up Nathan who tups Tania who kisses Kenneth who makes it with Maureen who watches Wayne who wriggles with Ruth who married Martin …

… and so it goes on, as Sleeping Around takes you on a whistle-stop tour of carnal habits throughout the British Isles.

With an epic cast of characters in diverse couplings, the play probes the subtleties, humour and pain of sex and relationships.

Four of the best new playwrights, from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, join forces with two actors, a composer and a choreographer in a satirical game of theatrical Chinese whispers.

Contains strong language and scenes that may offend.

In 1942 Viktor Ullmann, a successful Czech composer, was incarcerated by the Nazis in the notorious Terezin ghetto. Here, under circumstances of supreme deprivation, he created his finest pieces of music before transportation to Auschwitz where he died in 1944.

Fifty years on, Sonja Lyndon has written a blackly comic, bravely unsentimental and entirely heartbreaking play about Ulmann and the extraordinary cultural life that existed in Terezin under the noses of the Nazis.

Three interesting and diverse new plays developed through the Paines Plough Laboratory:

CALL ME JUDAS by Sonja Lyndon

CUCKOO by Hugh Costello

THE GLORY TREE by Susie Campbell

The secret life of Marie Tussaud, waxwork artiste extraordinaire and witness to the French Revolution.

Canada has produced some of the most innovative and exciting theatre artists to be performed in the UK in recent years, from the work of Robert Lepage to the plays of Michael Tremblay. Paines Plough’s International Conspiracy of theatre exchanges is pleased to share our enthusiasm and curiosity for some of Canada’s most exciting and original Quebecois and English voices in 4 Action Readings.

I Am Yours by Judith Thompson

Albertine in Five Times by Michael Tremblay

Provincetowb Playhouse, July 1919 by Normand Chaurette

7 Stories by Morris Panych

Wild Things is a snapshot of life in the secure ward of a psychiatric hospital. It follows the path of two patients who, together with their nurse and analyst, struggle within the tightly-woven confines of the label ‘mad’.

But who has the right to label them? What separates this man and woman from the staff who treat them? And how can sanity be judged in the whitewashed world of the hospital ward? Anna Reynalds has created four characters who are all balancing on the knife edge of passion, striving to keep their path between the beasts and the angels. Wild Things shows us that leaping into the arms of fulfilment can be dangerously close to sinking into the grip of despair, and that the line between criminality and madness is very fine indeed.

“I was happy. Here I was amongst the lowest of the low” Orwell.

1928. Old Etonian George Orwell chooses to live and learn amongst the urban poor. In Paris, they fantasise about the mere smell of food. In London, they dream of a sound night’s sleep. This raw, tragi-comic underworld is boldly and brilliantly staged by the award-winning Paines Plough team.

“…we were down by the shore laughing and splashing like teenagers, when he suddenly suggested burying me in the sand, as he had done on our engagement. “Just a bit of fun Win”. But he keeled over and died. I think he said “thank you”.

So I bought a round-the-world ticket, and that’s when it all really began…”