27 September 2017 - 2 December 2017

2017-09-27:00-00:00
London UK WC2H 0DA Charing Cross Road

Labour of Love

by James Graham
Noël Coward Theatre
Cast includes: Martin Freeman | Tamsin Greig

Michael Grandage Company and Headlong presented the world premiere of James Graham’s new play Labour of Love. This razor-sharp political comedy reunited James Graham and director Jeremy Herrin following their previous collaboration on This House, and played at the Noël Coward Theatre from the 15 September for 11 weeks only.

Labour MP David Lyons cares about modernisation and "electability"... his constituency agent, Jean Whittaker cares about principles and her community. Set away from the Westminster bubble in the party's traditional northern heartlands, this is a clash of philosophy, culture and class against the backdrop of the Labour Party over 25 years, as it moves from Kinnock through Blair into Corbyn... and beyond?

Labour of Love 27 September 2017 - 2 December 2017

Tamsin Greig

Jean Whittaker

Theatre includes: Twelfth Night, Gethsemane (National Theatre), The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to The Scriptures (or iHo), Longing (Hampstead Theatre), for the RSC: Much Ado About Nothing (also Novello Theatre - Olivier and Critics' Circle Awards), King John; Jumpy (Royal Court Theatre and Duke of York's Theatre), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown – The Musical (Playhouse Theatre), Little Dog Laughed (Garrick Theatre) and God of Carnage (Gielgud Theatre).

Television includes: Diana & I, Episodes, Friday Night Dinner, Inside No 9, The Guilty, White Heat, Going Postal, Emma, The Diary of Anne Frank, Love Soup, Green Wing, Doctor Who, The Lenny Henry Show, When I'm 64, Black Books, Jonathan Creek, Falling Apart, People Like Us and Happiness. 

Film includes: Breaking the Bank, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Tamara Drewe, Stop the World, Cuckoo, Shaun of the Dead, Ready When You Are Mr McGill and Captain Eager and the Mark of Voth

Tamsin is also known on radio, as Debbie Aldridge in The Archers.

Martin Freeman

David Lyons

Theatre includes: Richard III (Trafalgar Studios), Clybourne Park, Kosher Harry (Royal Court), Blue Eyes and Heels (Soho Theatre).

Television includes: Sherlock (Emmy for Best Supporting Actor, BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), Startup, Fargo (Golden Globe and Emmy nominations), The Office (BAFTA nomination).

Film includesCaptain America: Civil War, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, The Eichmann Show, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The World’s End, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Shaun of the Dead, Love Actually.

Rachael Stirling

Elizabeth Lyons

Theatre includes: The Winter’s Tale (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), An Intervention (Paines Plough), Variation on a Theme (Finborough Theatre), Medea (Headlong), The Recruiting Office, Helpless (Donmar Warehouse), An Ideal Husband (Vaudeville, West End), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Rose Kingston), The Priory (Royal Court), Pygmalion (International Tour), Taming of the Shrew, Uncle Vanya (Wilton’s), Look Back In Anger (Theatre Royal Bath), Tamburlaine (Bristol Old Vic), Theatre of Blood (National Theatre), Anna in The Tropics (Hampstead), A Woman of No Importance (Theatre Royal Haymarket).

Television includesDetectorists, Churchill’s Secret, Capital, Letters from Baghdad, The Bletchley Circle, The Game, Doctor Who, Women in Love, Minder, Boy Meets Girl, Lewis, Beyond, The Haunted Airman, Riot at the Rite, Murder at the Vicarage, The Final Quest, Poirot, Tipping the Velvet and Bait.

Film includesTheir Finest, Scottish Mussel, Sixteen, Snow White and the Huntsman, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Centurian, The Young Victoria, Dangerous Parking, The Truth, Freeze Frame, Triumph of Love, Another Life, Complicity, Maybe Baby and Still Crazy.

Susan Wokoma

Margot

Theatre includesA Raisin in the Sun (Sheffield Crucible/Tour), Henry IV (St Ann's Warehouse, New York for The Donmar), Game (Almeida Theatre), Hotel (National Theatre), Julius Caesar (St Ann's Warehouse, New York for The Donmar), Three Birds (Royal Exchange Manchester/Bush Theatre), Little on the Inside (Clean Break), The Country Wife, Powder Monkey (Royal Exchange Manchester), Dream Pill (Clean Break), Truth and Reconciliation (Royal Court).

Television includesPorters, Zapped, Brain Freeze, Crazyhead (RTS Award for Best On-Screen Performance), Crashing, Chewing Gum, Horrible Science, Bluestone 42, Uncle, Misfits, Doctors, Holby City, Hotel Trubble, That Summer Day.

Film includesBurn Burn Burn, The Inbetweeners 2, Half of a Yellow Sun.

Radio includes: De Wife of Bristol, The Cactus Flowers, Mrs Pickwick's Papers, Three Strong Women (BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Supporting Actress), Cuttin' It, Jake Yapp Saves Humanity in 28 Minutes, Mandrake and Me

Kwong Loke

Mr. Shen

Theatre includesYou For Me For You (Royal Court Theatre), You Never Touched Dirt (Royal Court Edinburgh), The Lulu Plays (Almeida Theatre), Hiawatha (Bristol Old Vic), Global Baby Factory (RADA Studios), Summer Rolls (Rich Mix), The Changeling (Finborough Theatre), Rashomon, Scenes from Paradise (Riverside Studios), The Magic PaintbrushThe Snow Lion (Polka Theatre), Blue Remembered Hills (UK Tour), Tibetan Inroads (Gate Theatre, Notting Hill), Two Gentlemen of Verona (Singapore Drama Centre), The Soldier’s Tale (South Bank).

Television includesAs Time Goes By, Love Hurts, Blue Peter, Casualty, The KnockThe Monkey King.

Radio includes: At Sea on Inya Lake, Another Land, Our Farther the Mountain, Joy Luck Club.

 

Dickon Tyrrell

Len Prior

Dickon is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Higher Education Consultant at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Theatre includes: An Anatomy of a SuicideHarvest (Royal Court Theatre), Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, OthelloThe Knight of the Burning PestleDoctor Scroggy’s War, Julius Caesar, The Duchess of Malfi, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Hamlet, Measure for Measure and King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe), Rutherford and Son (Northern Stage), Animal Farm (Derby Playhouse), The Romans in Britain (Sheffield Crucible), The Merchant of VeniceHenry IV Parts I and II, Richard II, Richard III, Julius Caesar, The Devil is an Ass (RSC), Major Barbara (Peter Hall Company), Romeo and Juliet, Dracula, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Northern Broadsides), Ninagawa’s Peer Gynt (Barbican), Much Ado About Nothing (West End), The Plough and the Stars (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Seven Doors (Gate Theatre, London).

Television includes: Law and OrderThe BillThe Trial of Tony Blair, Coronation  Street, Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings, Aberfan, Coup!, Doctors, Peak Practice, Harry and Spender.

Directing includes: Hamlet (ALRA), The Tempest  (OAE, York Early Music Festival),  Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale (Globe Education), Mammals, Harvest (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama) and As You Like It (The Oxford School of Drama).

Radio includes: Antony and Cleopatra and Major Barbara.

Film includes: The Isle.

James Graham

Writer

James Graham’s plays include: This House (National Theatre and West End- Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award nominated for Best Play), Ink (Almeida Theatre), Monster Raving Loony (Theatre Royal Plymouth and Soho Theatre), The Vote broadcast live onto television on the night of the general election 2015 (Donmar Warehouse), Privacy (Donmar Warehouse and Public Theater New York), The Angry Brigade (Theatre Royal Plymouth and Bush Theatre) and the book for the Finding Neverland musical on Broadway. As Writer in Residence at the Finborough Theatre his plays include Eden’s Empire – winner of the Catherine Johnson Best Play Award – The Man, and Sons of York. 

Writing for TV includesCoalition (Channel 4 winner of the RTS Best Single Drama in 2016), Prisoner’s Wives (BBC1) and Caught In a Trap (ITV1).

Writing for film includesX Plus Y, selected for the Toronto International and London Film Festival in 2014, before being released in cinemas worldwide in spring 2015. He is currently working on Gypsy Boy for BBC Films, and a film adaptation of 1984.

Jeremy Herrin

Director

Jeremy is Artistic Director of Headlong. He was Deputy Artistic Director at the Royal Court from 2009 to 2012 and is Co-Chair of Stage Directors UK.

Work for Headlong includes: The House They Grew Up In (Chichester Festival Theatre), Common (National Theatre), Junkyard (Bristol Old Vic/Theatr Clwyd/Rose Theatre Kingston), Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (UK Tour), The Absence of War (UK Tour), The Nether (at the Royal Court and in the West End), People, Places & Things (at the National Theatre and in the West End).

For the National Theatre his directing credits include: This House (Olivier nomination for Best Director), which transferred to Chichester Festival Theatre and the West End in a co-production with Headlong, The Plough and The Stars (co-directed with Howard Davies), and Statement of Regret.

For the RSC: The world premiere of Wolf Hall (Evening Standard Award for Best Director; Olivier and Tony award nominations) and Bring Up the Bodies, which transferred to the West End in May 2014 and to Broadway in 2015.

For the Royal Court: No QuarterHeroHaunted ChildThe HereticKinSpur of the MomentOff the Endz, The Priory (Olivier Award for Best Comedy), Tusk Tusk (Evening Standard Best Director nomination), The Vertical Hour and That Face (also West End).

Other theatre includes: Noises Off (American Airlines Theatre, Broadway), The Moderate Soprano (Hampstead), Children’s Children (Almeida), Uncle Vanya and South Downs (Chichester Festival Theatre)Absent Friends and Death and the Maiden (Harold Pinter Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe), Marble (Abbey, Dublin), The Family Reunion (Donmar Warehouse), Blackbird (Market Theatre, Johannesburg), Gathered Dust and Dead SkinThe LoversDirty NetsOur Kind of FunSudden Collapses in Public PlacesToastSmack Family RobinsonAttachmentsFrom the UnderworldThe Last PostPersonal BelongingsNE1 and Knives in Hens (Live Theatre Newcastle).

Lee Newby

Set & Costume Designer

Theatre includes: The Importance of Being Earnest (Theatr Clwyd), Lunch and the Bow of Ulysses (Trafalgar Studios 2), The Tempest, Deathwatch, Ignis (Print Room), Floyd Collins (Wilton’s Music Hall), Stay Awake Jake (The Vault Festival), Grand Hotel and Dogfight (Southwark Playhouse).

As Associate DesignerLazarus (King’s Cross), Romeo and Juliet (Garrick), Photograph 51, Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Peter and Alice, Privates on Parade (Noel Coward Theatre), A Damsel in Distress (Chichester), Carousel (Lyric Opera of Chicago/Houston Grand Opera), Wolf Hall: Parts 1 & 2 (RSC/Aldwych/Broadway), Macbeth (Manchester International Festival/New York), Hughie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Broadway).

Neil Austin

Lighting Designer

West End includes: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace), The Goat, Great Britain (Haymarket), Travesties, A Life in the Theatre (Apollo), Buried ChildThe Hothouse and Dealers Choice (Trafalgar Studios), Photograph 51, Shakespeare in Love and Henry V (Noel Coward), The Weir, Hamlet, Madame de Sade and Twelfth Night (Wyndham’s), The Sunshine Boys (Savoy), South Downs, The Browning Version, Death and the Maiden and The Childrens Hour (Comedy/Pinter), Piaf, The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Vaudeville), No Man’s Land (Duke of York’s), Frost/Nixon (Gielgud), King Lear and The Seagull (RSC: New London), Bend it Like Beckham (Phoenix), Betty Blue Eyes and Much Ado About Nothing (Novello).

Other theatre includes: Woyzeck, Electra (Old Vic), Three Days in the CountryRules for LivingDara, The Silver Tassie, Liolà, Children of the Sun, Port, She Stoops to Conquer, The Cherry Orchard, Women Beware Women, London Assurance,The White Guard, Oedipus, Philistines, The Man of Mode and Thérèse Raquin (National Theatre), Henry IV, Julius Caesar, The Night Alive, Spelling Bee, King Lear, Passion, The Wild Duck, After Miss Julie and Caligula (Donmar Warehouse), Birdland, The Faith Machine and Tusk Tusk (Royal Court) and Medea (Almeida), The Dazzle (Found 111), Travesties, Assassins, Dealers Choice (Chocolate Factory).

Broadway includes: Hughie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Evita, Red, Hamlet, The Seafarer and Frost/Nixon.

Austin was the Recipient of the 2017 Olivier Award for Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, the 2011 Olivier Award for The White Guard, and both the 2010 Tony Award and the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Red on Broadway.

Paul Arditti

Sound Designer

Current & future productions include: Billy Elliot (UK Tour), Caroline Or Change (Chichester Festival Theatre), MosquitoesAmadeus, Beginning, Macbeth (National Theatre), Young Marx, Julius Caesar (Bridge Theatre), Mary Stuart (Almeida & West End).

Recent designs include: Betrayal (Derby Playhouse), The Glass Menagerie (Edinburgh International Festival & West End), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Young Vic), The Emperor (Young Vic & HOME Manchester), The Threepenny Opera, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Everyman, Behind The Beautiful Forevers, London Road (National Theatre), A Streetcar Named Desire (Young Vic & New York), Red Velvet (Tricycle & West End), King Charles III (Almeida, West End, UK Tour & Broadway), BakkhaiAmerican Psycho (Almeida), The AudienceSkylight (West End & Broadway), wonder.land (Manchester International Festival & NT), Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (West End).

Awards and nominations include: an Evening Standard award for Festen; Olivier nomination 2017 for Amadeus 2017; two Olivier Awards for Billy Elliot and St Joan. Also a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for Billy Elliot, and Drama Desk Awards for The Pillowman and Four Baboons Adoring The Sun.

Paul is a founder member of The Association of Sound Designers, and was appointed an associate of the National Theatre in September 2015.

Duncan McLean

Video & Projection Designer

Theatre includes: Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes (Sadler’s Wells & UK Tour), Privacy (Public Theater, New York), The Tempest (St Ann’s Warehouse, New York), Another World (National Theatre), Hangmen (Royal Court/Wyndham’s), The Bodyguard (Adelphi Theatre/UK Tour/Worldwide), Committee, Saint Joan, The Shakespeare Trilogy, One Ngiht In Miami, Privacy, City Of Angels (Donmar Warehouse), 28 Days Later, Dr. Strangelove And Star Wars (Secret Cinema), Impossible (Noel Coward), Harry Enfield & Paul Whitehouse Legends! (UK Tour), The Hairy Ape, A Flea In Her Ear, The Tempest, The Real Thing, The Norman Conquests And All About My Mother (Old Vic), Urinetown (Apollo), The Mentalists (Wyndham’s Theatre), Ghost The Musical (Germany), John Bishop - Supersonic (UK Tour), Still Game Live (Glasgow Hydro Arena), Shrek The Musical (Drury Lane/UK Tour), War Horse Prom (Royal Albert Hall), Albion (Bush), Mark Thomas - Cuckooed (UK Tour/Edinburgh Festival), Derren Brown - Infamous (Palace Theatre/UK Tour), Macbeth And The Flying Dutchman (NI Opera), A Conversation With John Travolta (Drury Lane), Theatre Uncut (Young Vic), Inside Wagner’s Head (Royal Opera House), If Only (Chichester Festival Theatre), Let It Be (West End/UK Tour/Broadway/Worldwide), Strictly Confidential (UK Tour), Catwalk Confidential (Miami/London), Reasons To Be Cheerful (Theatre Royal, Stratford East/UK Tours), Kristina (Royal Albert Hall), The Hairy Bikers Big Night Out (UK Tour), The Norman Conquests (Broadway), Frost/Nixon (Gielgud) And Evita (International Tour).

Sam Stevenson

Casting Director

Theatre includes: CommonBlood and Gifts (NT), the 2017 Everyman CompanyThe Haunting of Hill House (Liverpool Everyman), For Services Rendered (Chichester), The Royale, The Herd (Bush Theatre), An Inspector  CallsOne Man, Two Guvnors, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Waiting for GodotThe Vortex (West End), 55 Days, Canary (Hampstead Theatre).

TV includes: Don’t Take My Baby (BAFTA Award for Best Single Drama), Our World War, Glasgow GirlsNightshift, Care, The Minor CharacterNixon’s the OneThe Selection, four series of Silent Witness, Martin Amis’ MoneyConsuming Passion, Mr Loveday’s Little Outing and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. In 2010, along with her co-casting director, Gemma Hancock, she received an Emmy nomination for BBC1’s Emma.

Film includes: Leave to Remain, Private Peaceful, Babel, & The New World.

Labour of Love
Labour of Love

Reviews and Marketing

rating star rating star rating star rating star
"Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig are magic. Knockabout funny and politically incisive"
rating star rating star rating star rating star rating star
"You'll emerge from the theatre punching the air"
rating star rating star rating star rating star
"A brilliant new play"
rating star rating star rating star rating star
"Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig make a superb double act"
rating star rating star rating star rating star
"Smart and punchy"
rating star rating star rating star rating star
"Terrific performances"
rating star rating star rating star rating star
"One of the most entertaining evenings available in the West End"
rating star rating star rating star rating star
"Jeremy Herrin's production is as masterly as ever"
rating star rating star rating star rating star
"Tamsin Greig and Martin Freeman sparkle"
Labour of Love

Awards

Winner of Best New Comedy at the 2018 Olivier Awards

Behind the Scenes

For more information including behind the scenes visit MGCfutures.

 

Back to Theatre
Scroll to top