Jane Turner, the Australian writer and star of cult comedy hit Kath And Kim, will make her West End debut this May in the UK premiere of hit Aussie play Holding The Man.
The play, which opens at the Trafalgar Studio 1 on 4 May (previews from 23 April), is the stage adaptation of Tim Conigrave’s award-winning memoir. It tells of how writer, actor and activist Conigrave fell for the captain of the football team at an all-male Melbourne High School in the 1970s, follows their 15 year relationship and explores what it was like to be young and gay in 70s Australia.
Conigrave’s book, which was published in 1995, went on to win the United Nations Human Rights Award for Non-fiction and was reprinted globally 13 times. The stage adaptation opened in Sydney in 2006, winning a number of awards including the Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Best Play.
Turner is best known for playing Kath Day-Knight in Australian comedy Kath And Kim, but also appeared in long-running drama Prisoner and comedies Fast Forward, The D-Generation and Full Frontal.
Holding The Man will be directed by David Berthold, who directed the original Australian production, with design by Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical’s Brian Thomson. It follows current Trafalgar Studios hit The Caretaker, Pinter’s masterpiece which stars Jonathan Pryce as the outsider brought into the flat of two very different brothers.
MA