The Wardrobe Ensemble’s Hit Comedy Education, Education, Education arrives in the West End for Strictly Limited 4 Week Run

THE WARDROBE ENSEMBLE’S HIT COMEDY
EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION
ARRIVES IN THE WEST END FOR STRICTLY LIMITED 4 WEEK RUN AT TRAFALGAR STUDIOS, 31ST MAY – 29TH JUNE

Acclaimed theatre company The Wardrobe Ensemble, in co-production with Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Shoreditch Town Hall, will bring the The Scotsman Fringe First Award and The Stage Edinburgh Award winning, smash-hit production Education, Education, Education to London’s West End this summer.

“We in Germany, and Europe, have been watching somewhat envious as your country’s been undergoing a resurrection… Your newfound pride in your culture and your heritage… It’s so wonderful to see a country wearing its identity so proudly on its sleeve”

It's May 1997.

The iPhone doesn't exist, no one knows who Harry Potter is, Titanic is on the shelves of every Blockbuster and we have just won Eurovision. Britain is the coolest place in the world.

“First a Eurovision win and now Tony’s our new Prime Minister. I can barely recognize this country; you know I actually saw people smiling on the train this morning.”

At the local secondary school it's a different story. It's the last week of term and Tobias, the new German language assistant has just arrived in the UK. While political change occurs outside of the classroom, a revolution slowly starts to take place within it. Tobias is greeted by a group of eccentric schoolteachers just trying to make it through the day, including Miss Belltop-Doyle who can't control her year 10s and Mr Pashley who is trying to keep a confiscated Tamagotchi alive.

Speaking on this momentous day the Prime Minister, Tony Blair said “At a good school, children gain the basic tools for life and work. But they ought also to learn the joy of life: the exhilaration of music, the excitement of sport, the beauty of art, the magic of science. And they learn the value of life: what it is to be responsible citizens who give something back to their community.”

This whip-smart show is a love letter to education in the 90s and is jam-packed with more hits than ‘Now That’s What I Call 1997’ including Oasis, Katrina and the Waves, The Spice Girls. Crammed with Teletubbies references, jokes about Take That and the Macarena, Education, Education, Education plays a strictly limited 4 week season at the Trafalgar Studios.

The Wardrobe Ensemble uses its singular style of irreverent humour and inventive theatricality to dissect education and responsibility at the dawn of Blair’s Britain in 1997. In Education, Education, Education audiences are thrown back to the 90s; the music, the fads and the icons as well as issues that remain pertinent to the twenty-first century experience.

The cast of Education, Education, Education will include: Tom Brennan (Paul McIntyre), Ben Vardy (Tim Pashley), Jesse Meadows (Susan Belltop-Doyle), Emily Greenslade (Emily Greenslade), James Newton (Tobias) and Tom England (Hugh Mills). Education, Education, Education has been devised by The Wardrobe Ensemble and directed by Jesse Jones and Helena Middleton. Further casting will be announced in due course.

​Education, Education, Education is a co-production between The Wardrobe Ensemble, Royal & Derngate, Northampton, and Shoreditch Town Hall, presented in the West End by Trafalgar Theatre Productions and Eilene Davidson.

LISTINGS

Education, Education, Education
Trafalgar Studios 1, 14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY
31 May – 29 June 7.30pm, matinees at 2.3opm on Thursdays and Saturdays*
Press Night: 5th June
Box Office: 0844 871 7632
*No matinee performance on Sat 22 and Thu 27 June

Directed by Jesse Jones and Helena Middleton
Written by The Wardrobe Ensemble
Design: Lucy Sierra
Lighting Design: Katharine Williams
Sound Design: Ben Grant
Dramaturg: Bea Roberts
Associate Sound Design: Daniel Balfour
Wardrobe Supervisor: Felicity Jones

Cast List:

Tom England- Hugh Mills
Emily Greenslade- Emily Greenslade
Jesse Meadows- Susan Belltop- Doyle
James Newton- Tobias
Tom Brennan- Paul McIntyre
Ben Vardy- Tim Pashley

ABOUT THE WARDROBE ENSEMBLE
The Wardrobe Ensemble is a Bristol-based group of theatre artists working together to make and tour new plays that dissect the twenty-first century experience. Dedicated to finding the place where the intellectual and the emotional collide, they explore the big ideas of our time through intimate human stories and bold imagery. They consist of nine core members, one producer and a constantly growing community of associate artists and work as a democratic devising ensemble wherein every member contributes to the research, writing, structuring, and performing of a show, creating a unique shared theatrical language and aesthetic from show to show.

The Wardrobe Ensemble has made four full company shows, RIOT, 33, 1972: The Future of Sex and South Western.

They have also made nine shows for families and young audiences, including Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain and The Star Seekers, which played at the National Theatre for 3.5 weeks in summer 2018.

They are Associates of Complicite and Shoredicth Town Hall, and their shows have been performed at the National Theatre, Almeida, Bristol Old Vic, Northern Stage and abroad at Jack, Brooklyn, NYC.

ABOUT ROYAL & DERNGATE, NORTHAMPTON
Royal & Derngate is the main venue for arts and entertainment in Northamptonshire, with audience members for live shows and films numbering 378,000 last year, and an additional 115,000 seeing its work on tour at over 85 venues. Named Regional Theatre of the Year in The Stage Awards in 2011 (and nominated again in 2016), the theatre won the UK Theatre Awards for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre in 2015 and Best Touring Production in 2016 for The Herbal Bed, and The Stage Ensemble Award and a Fringe First for Education, Education, Education in 2017.

Alongside touring nationally and internationally Royal & Derngate’s Made in Northampton productions have transferred to the West End and Broadway as well as Shakespeare’s Globe, the National Theatre, Hackney Empire and the Lyric Hammersmith. The venue also presents a diverse range of visiting productions on both the Derngate and Royal stages, featuring musicals, dance, comedy and music, including a residency from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Royal & Derngate’s award-winning, nationally recognised Get Involved programme engages with over 21,000 participants each year, including schools, families and communities in Northamptonshire and beyond, and its two-screen cinema welcomed over 82,000 audience members to the best in world, independent, British and mainstream film. Meanwhile, the theatre’s Generate artistic development programme supports hundreds of local and emerging artists and practitioners each year.

Facebook: /royalandderngate and Twitter: @royalderngate

ABOUT SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL
Welcoming over 70,000 people through its doors every year, Shoreditch Town Hall is an established independent cultural and community space housed in one of the grandest former civic buildings in the capital. Comprising over 48,000 square feet across 70 individual rooms, the Town Hall has undergone something of a transformation in recent years, from a beautiful but under the radar hire space, to a thriving flagship cultural and events venue for Hackney, London and beyond.

Shoreditch Town Hall is now more in use than at any other point in its recent history with a year-round programme of bold and adventurous new theatre, music, dance, comedy, talks and events, alongside a range of learning, community and engagement activities. The venue is also occupied by one of the most talked about restaurants of recent years, the Michelin starred Clove Club, in the west side of the building.

With eight main spaces from 40 to 800 capacity, the Town Hall works with 130 artists, community groups and arts organisations, programmes over 60 productions, hosts up to 700 events, and commissions up to 8 new pieces of live performance every year.

The Town Hall’s programme has recently included work with Andrew Schneider, dreamthinkspeak, Jamie Lloyd, Kneehigh, Manchester International Festival, Nigel Barrett & Louise Mari, Royal Shakespeare Company, Spymonkey and The Wardrobe Ensemble, alongside events with the likes of Alexander McQueen, Amazon, Channel 4, Fred Perry, Red Bull and the filming of The Death of Stalin, Florence Foster Jenkins and The Lady in the Van.

Facebook: /ShoreditchTH, Twitter: @ShoreditchTH and Instagram: @shoreditchTH

Shoreditch Town Hall is a registered charity (1069617) and receives no regular or revenue funding.

ABOUT TRAFALGAR THEATRE PRODUCTIONS
Co-founded by Sir Howard Panter and Dame Rosemary Squire in 2017, Trafalgar Entertainment is a live entertainment business and home to Trafalgar Studios, two theatres under one roof in the West End. Recent productions include transfers of the two sell-out ground breaking and Olivier nominated new British productions: the Bush Theatre’s Misty and National Theatre’s Nine Night.

The production arm of the company, Trafalgar Theatre Productions, is producing a group of new shows and classic musicals in London and internationally including the Lincoln Center Theatrer’s award-winning production of The King and I at the London Palladium and now worldwide, The Rocky Horror Show worldwide; Joshua Harmon’s Admissions starring Alex Kingston, new British musical Tom Morris’ The Grinning Man and Apologia starring Stockard Channing at Trafalgar Studios. Trafalgar Theatre Productions is delighted to be co-producing Education, Education, Education at Trafalgar Studios.

Other co-productions include Mary Stuart starring Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams at the Duke of York’s, the hugely successful UK Tour of Jersey Boys, the UK Tour and London season of The Messiah starring Hugh Dennis, John Marquez and Lesley Garrett, The Height of The Storm starring Jonathan Pryce and Dame Eileen Atkins and The Starry Messenger starring Matthew Broderick and Elizabeth McGovern, both at Wyndham’s Theatre.

The company also owns Trafalgar Releasing (formerly Picturehouse Entertainment) who broadcast productions live worldwide, from The RSC, Glyndebourne, Met Opera, Bolshoi Ballet to David Gilmour, Muse, Coldplay, BTS and Trafalgar Theatre Production’s production of The King and I, live from the iconic London Palladium amongst many more; and in 2018 Trafalgar Entertainment acquired Stagecoach Performing Arts, the UK market leader in extra-curricular Performing Arts tuition with nearly 700 schools and over 46,000 students in the UK and worldwide.

Previous to Trafalgar Entertainment, Howard and Rosemary built from scratch and ran for its first 25 years, one of the world’s largest and most successful live theatre businesses – the Ambassador Theatre Group. Under their leadership, ATG became a premier international theatre owner and prolific, successful global producer.

Productions and co-productions at ATG at this time included The Ruling Class starring James McAvoy, The Homecoming starring John Simm, Oresteia, Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown starring Tamsin Greig, East is East starring Jane Horrocks, Richard III starring Martin Freeman, Jersey Boys, Macbeth starring James McAvoy, The Hothouse starring Simon Russell Beale, Posh, Jumpy and Constellations (Royal Court at the Duke of York’s), Legally Blonde the Musical, Monty Python’s Spamalot, The Rocky Horror Show, South Pacific at The Barbican, Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker!, The Misanthrope starring Damian Lewis and Keira Knightley, West Side Story, Guys and Dolls starring Ewan McGregor and multi award-winning West End musical Carmen Jones. Productions on Broadway included The Mountaintop starring Samuel L Jackson and Angela Bassett; Exit the King starring Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon and John Doyle’s award-winning production of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

ABOUT EILENE DAVIDSON
Eilene is an international theatre producer who has worked in USA and Europe.

Recently produced plays include Lie Of The Mind (Southwark Playhouse, London 2017), War Paint (Broadway 2017), Fraulein Julie (Schmidt Theatre, Hamburg 2017), Late Company (Trafalgar Studio 2017), Grinning Man (Trafalgar Studios 2017-18) Consent (Pinter Theatre, London 2018), Dusty with Eleanor Lloyd Productions (UK Tour) Paper Dolls (Mosaic Theatre, Washington, USA 2018). In 2016 Eilene set up her own company STAGE TRAFFIC to exclusively showcase new writing in the States and UK. Recently acclaimed productions include This Little Life Of Mine (Park Theatre, London), 3 Women (Trafalgar Studios) and Two Degrees (Calderwood, Boston, USA). This Spring she is also producing Emilia (Vaudeville theatre, London) and On. Your Feet (London Colliseum). Eilene formerly worked as an actress, writer and dramaturg in UK/USA and is on the board of the prestigious Huntington Theatre in USA.