Ashley Walters, Lorraine Burroughs and Daniel Francis have been cast in Bola Agbaje’s new play Off The Endz, which opens at the Royal Court in February 2010.
Walters, who can currently be seen playing Michael in the BBC adaptation of Small Island, plays David, one of three 20-somethings who all grew up on a London estate. While he is a charmer who has recently been released from prison, Kojo (played by Francis) is determined to work his way to a better life. Sharon (Burroughs), David’s ex and Kojo’s current girlfriend, is caught between the two. Agbaje’s play asks how do you choose the right path when temptation lurks around every corner?
In addition to Small Island, Walters, a former member of the chart-topping So Solid Crew, was a regular in BBC con drama Hustle and has appeared in films including Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ and Bullet Boy. He previously starred in the Royal Court production of Oxford Street and in In The Red And Brown Water at the Young Vic.
Burroughs starred in one of the most acclaimed London productions of 2009, Katori Hall’s tale of the last night of Martin Luther King’s life, The Mountaintop. She has previously appeared in The War Next Door, How Long Is Never? and Fabulation at the Tricycle theatre.
Francis’s theatre credits include The Comedy Of Errors and Twelfth Night for the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Brothers Size at the Young Vic.
Off The Endz, which is directed by Jeremy Herrin, is Agbaje’s second play for the Royal Court. Her first, Gone Too Far, marked her out as one of British theatre’s most exciting young writers, winning a Laurence Olivier Award in the process. Her work can currently be seen at the Tricycle theatre, where Detaining Justice is playing alongside Roy Williams’s Category B and Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Seize The Day as part of the Not Black And White season.
MA