The Young Vic will stage the London premieres of two internationally acclaimed dramas next year; Mike Bartlett’s UK Theatre Award-winning Bull and Edinburgh Festival hit Lippy.
Clare Lizzimore’s production of Bull, which was first seen at the Crucible Theatre in 2013 before transferring for a run Off-Broadway, will play in the acclaimed theatre’s The Maria space from 8 January to 7 February.
Written as a companion piece to Bartlett’s Olivier Award-winning Royal Court hit Cock, Bull takes an equally frank look at power dynamics in relationships, in this case within an office setting.
As three colleagues fight for their jobs, the audience is offered the chance to cheer and boo the opponents as cruel one-upmanship and playground tactics transform the office – quite literally in this case thanks to Soutra Gilmour’s inventive design – into a bullfighting ring.
Casting for Bull, which follows news that King Charles III playwright Bartlett’s latest work Game will premiere at the Almeida Theatre in February, is still to be announced.
Following Bull in The Maria from 19 February to 21 March is Bush Moukarzel and Mark O’Halloran’s harrowing piece Lippy.
Created by Dead Centre and directed by the theatre company’s Ben Kidd and Moukarzel, the drama imagines the circumstances which led to four women’s decision to starve themselves to death in Ireland.
In 2000, an aunt and her three nieces barricaded themselves into their home and entered into a suicide pact. The company’s exploration of this tragic event takes inspiration from a lip-reader who interpreted the few seconds of CCTV footage of the women in a supermarket before they shut themselves away from the world.
First seen at the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2013, when it was named Best Production at the Irish Times Theatre Awards, Lippy played a hugely successful award-winning run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival and will make its US premiere next month.
The production stars former Royal Ballet performer Joanna Banks, David Heap (Salome, Gate Theatre), acclaimed dance maker and performer Liv O’Donoghue, playwright and director Moukarzel, and Dead Centre’s Adam Welsh, who also designed the sound and music for the production.
The pair of premieres joins a busy winter season that also includes main house productions of Suzanne Andrade’s Golem and the return of the Juliet Stevenson-led Happy Days.