The Frontline
Writer
Ché Walker
Director
Ché Walker
Location
The Sainsbury Theatre
Dates
Friday 4 April at 7pm
Saturday 5 April at 2pm
Monday 7 April at 7pm
Tuesday 8 April at 2pm*
Wednesday 9 April at 7pm
*This will be a relaxed performance. Find out more.
The running time is approximately 2 hours, including an interval.
About the show
Saturday night outside the tube: God, strip bars, weed, crack, lost old men, unemployed actors and vegans all collide in a riptide of chaos on the streets of London. There’s Beth the reformed Christian and Erkenwald the hot-dog seller, old Ragdale on a quest to find his daughter, actor-playwright and egomaniac Mordechai Thurrock, and Cockburn, Elliot and Clayton the dealers and junkies whose trade both sustains and destroys the lives of those around them.
In this vibrant and darkly comic new play, a dozen private stories emerge and their voices give utterance to a storm of subjects and feelings: pop culture and sexual fantasy, the ruins of empire and the delusions of religion, foreign oil and prehistoric London. A panorama of contemporary London encompassing the cruel and the tender, the gutter and the stars.
Ché’s stage credits include The Prince (Southwark Playhouse), Intra Muros (Park Theatre, which Ché also directed), Mark Ravenhill’s Biloxi Blues (Salisbury Playhouse); Christmas (Bush Theatre). Ché has also appeared in The Globe’s previous productions of Othello & Love’s Labour’s Lost.
TV credits include Riches (ITV); The Chelsea Detective (Acorn TV); Youngers (Channel 4); Holly City, and The Office (BBC).
As a writer and director, Ché’s credits include Been So Long (Royal Court), which was adapted into a feature film by Greenacre/BFI/Film 4, the award-winning play Flesh Wound (Royal Court); Crazy Love (Paines Plough); The Frontline; The Lightning Child (The Globe); Lovesong (ETT); The Ballad of Klook & Vinette (Park Theatre); The Etienne Sisters (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Time Is Love (Finborough Theatre); and Wolf Cub (Hampstead Theatre).
Ché has also written for screen; his short film My Old Flame (Channel 4) was directed by Academy Award winner Asif Kapadia.
Ché has been an associate teacher at RADA, and has further taught at LAMDA, RCSSD, East15, Webber Douglas Academy, and Stella Adler Academy in Los Angeles.
Contains assault, threats of murder, depiction of death by gun wound, multiple instances of smoking marijuana, heroin use via injection, the selling of drugs, excessive violence and threats, gruesome injury, murder, needles and coercive sexual harassment.
References to domestic violence, prescription drug abuse and war (including the Fall of Mogadishu, the Dervish movement and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine). Use of explicit language, blades and blood throughout.
The Frontline was first performed at Shakespeare's Globe, Bankside, London, on 6 July 2008.
Creative Team
* LAMDA staff member or visiting artist
Director
Ché Walker*
Designer
Amanda Mascarenhas*
Producer
Rebecca Lyle*
Assistant Producer
Bobby Harding*
Voice Director
Gurkiran Kaur*
Costume Supervisor
Tabitha Stock*
Movement Director & Choreographer
Oluwatosin Omotosho*
Musical Director
James Michalos*
Fight Director
Lisa Connell*
Composer
Uchenna Ngwe*
Intimacy Director
Sophie Cooch*
Assistant Directors
Rebeca dos Anjos
Hope Wishart
Lighting Designer
Aidan Gibson
Sound Designer
Bella Kear*
Cast
Salim / Roderique
Tobias Adetula
Jimmy / Cockburn / Carlton
Lewis Bowes
Marcus
Mostyn Crawford
Kurt / Elliot
Ryan Duval
Ragdale / Jayson
Mazlum Gül
Beth
Mia Haynes-French
Benny
Kenndrick Horton
Erkenwald
J Howe
Val / Jodie
Neve Kelman
Mahmoud
Dilip Kumar
Violet
Mariama Mansary
Donna
Rebecca Matundu
Miruts
Jamar Morgan
Mordechai Thurrock
Roland Royal III
Babydoll / Casey
Rẹmi Shorunke-Samuel
Seamus
Oliver Winn
Production Team
* LAMDA staff member or visiting artist
Stage Manager
Amelia Thorpe
Deputy Stage Manager
Millie Swinchen-Rew*
Assistant Stage Managers
Arthur Moore
Poppy Stewart
Production Manager
Meghan Sorohan*
Deputy Lx / Programmer
Ghoti Fisher
Production Lx
Ronan McKenna
Production Sound Engineer
Abigail Brophy
Production Carpenter
Simon Fleming
Sound Assistants
Phoebe Bennett
Ben Birkwood
XiTong Cao
Bastie Colclough
Nazaire Kilborne-Appiah
Peter McNally
Aryan Sherifi
Ash Vaughan
Construction Crew
Inaaya Abdullah
Lucia Cohen
Finley Cozens
Caspar Edwards
Ashlyn Fray
Rhianna Minhoca
Brooke Sangster
Nicola Usher
Sound Operators
Phoebe Bennett
Aryan Sherifi
Ash Vaughan
Video Operator
Ben Birkwood
Scenic Artists
Millie Heighes*
Zoe Bridger*
Lighting Operators
Izzy Barton
Kat Parry
Indianah Raymond
Jackson Walsh
