Philip Ridley’s testing drama set in a post-Apocalyptic vision of London, Mercury Fur, is to play a West End season at the Trafalgar Studios 2.
Greenhouse Theatre Company’s production, which has already been hailed a success after playing at the Old Red Lion earlier this year, comes to the Whitehall venue at the end of May.
Set in a capital ravaged by riots and driven by the thirst for hallucinogenic butterflies, it follows two brothers who survive by organising sinister parties that fulfil the darkest fantasies of their depraved clients. But as they prepare for the next party guest and their particular peccadillo, they have to face up to how far they are willing to go and exactly what they will do to save their loved ones.
Mercury Fur has been a source of controversy since its 2005 premiere which starred Ben Whishaw, when Ridley’s own publisher, Faber and Faber, refused to publish the play text.
Greenhouse Theatre Company’s new production, which is directed by Ned Bennett, has already turned heads, being described by Time Out as: “A Molotov cocktail of blood and starlight” and “as thrilling as it is repulsive”.
It opens at the intimate Trafalgar Studios 2 following the run of Step 9 (Of 12), Rob Hayes’s tale of a recovering alcoholic which stars The Inbetweeners’s Blake Harrison and opens tonight.