The Ruling Class (Modern Plays)

by Peter Barnes

  Joshua McGuire | Dinsdale Gurney

  Theatre credits include: the title role in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus at Chichester Festival Theatre, directed by Jonathan Church. He has also played leading roles in Privacy at the Donmar Warehouse, The Magistrate at the National Theatre, Posh at The Royal Court. He played Hamlet for The Globe in his first year out of RADA.

  Television and radio credits include: series one and two of The Hour and The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, and Mr Bingley in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

  2013 saw the release of Richard Curtis’ movie About Time and in 2014 he was in the festive comedy Get Santa, alongside Rafe Spall, Jodie Whittaker and Jim Broadbent. Joshua can currently be seen in cinemas as John Ruskin in Mike Leigh’s film Mr Turner, alongside Timothy Spall and Marion Bailey.

  Anthony O’Donnell | Daniel Tucker

  Theatre credits include: The Captain of Kopenick, The Shaughraun, Bartholomew Fair, Ghetto, The Miser, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Under Milk Wood, The Way of the World, The London Cuckolds and President of an Empty Room (National); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Witch of Edmonton, The Winter’s Tale, Our Friends in the North, Measure for Measure, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Beggar’s Opera, Henry VIII and Kiss Me Kate (RSC); Our Private Life (Royal Court); Glengarry Glen Ross, Twelfth Night, Uncle Vanya (Donmar); King Lear, Galileo, Dance of Death, Ivanov, The Homecoming (Almeida); The Tempest (Bridge Project, New York/world tour/Old Vic); and The Weir in the West End.

  Television credits include: Stella (Series 1 to 4 and Christmas Special 2013); The Suspicions of Mr Wicher, Being Human, Gavin and Stacey, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Sweeney Todd, Much Ado About Nothing, Charles II, Moll Flanders, Doc Martin, Nuts in May and Knock for Knock.

  Film credits include: Skyfall, Caught in the Act, The Death Defying Acts, The Baker, Match Point, Vera Drake, Love’s Labours Lost, Secret and Lies, Robin Hood and Santa Claus.

  Rosy Benjamin | Ensemble

  Training: Drama Centre London.

  Theatre credits include: Backbeat (Duke of York’s); Tied To You (New Diorama/Roundhouse); Sunstroke (Platform); The Happy Road to Camden and Trenton, The Long Christmas Dinner (King’s Head); La Boheme (Soho Theatre); Banquet of the Senses, Lingua (Shakespeare’s Globe).

  Television credits include: Buffy, 5 Needles.

  Film credits include: Genius (dir. Michael Grandage); Heartstrings.

  Andrew Bloomer | Ensemble

  Theatre credits include: Relatively Speaking (Wyndhams Theatre); Internet Connection (Old Red Lion); Nursery Crimes (King’s Head); Rattle of a Simple Man (UK No.1 tour); Portrait of a Lady/A Doll’s House (Peter Hall Company); Othello (Bloomsbury Theatre) and Bacon Sandwich (Brentwood Theatre).

  Television credits include: Re-Boot, Stage Door Johnnies (Sky).

  Oliver Lavery | Ensemble

  Theatre credits include: Parzival (Sharpham Trust); Anton Chekhov’s Vaudevilles (Jermyn Street Theatre); See How They Run (York Theatre Royal); The Government Inspector (UK tour); King Henry VI, Part 1 (Rose Playhouse); Peter Pan (tour); Ward No 6 (Camden People’s Theatre); The Devil is an Ass (White Bear); Theatre Souk (Theatre Delicatessen).

  Geoffrey Towers | Ensemble

  Theatre credits include: Travelling Light and The Veil (National Theatre); The Weir, Passion Play, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Losing Louis, Spring Awakening and The Graduate (all West End); The Importance of Being Earnest (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park); Monster (Greenwich Playhouse); Romeo and Juliet (Jermyn Street Theatre); California Suite (Madinat Theatre, Dubai); The Deep Blue Sea (Northcott Theatre, Exeter);

  The Shadow Box (Southwark Playhouse); Patience (Finborough Theatre); The Merchant of Venice (Middle Temple Gardens); The Kisses (Scary Little Girls); Doctor Faustus and Much Ado About Nothing (Oxford Shakespeare Company); Daisy Pulls It Off, Oh! What a Lovely War, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Kent Rep).

  Television credits include: Doctors, Waking the Dead, EastEnders, Dangerous Health, The Bill, Eroica and Casualty.

  Other credits Include: recorded novels for the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

  Creative Team Biographies

  Jamie Lloyd | Director

  For Trafalgar Transformed: Richard III, The Pride, The Hothouse and Macbeth (Olivier nomination for Best Revival).

  Theatre credits include: Assassins (Menier Chocolate Factory); Urinetown (St James and Apollo Theatres; Whatsonstage nomination for Best Director); The Commitments (Palace Theatre); Cyrano de Bergerac (Roundabout Theatre Company; American Airlines Theatre, Broadway); The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic); She Stoops to Conquer (National, Olivier; Whatsonstage nomination for Best Revival); The Faith Machine and The Pride (Royal Court; Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for The Pride); Inadmissible Evidence, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Passion and Polar Bears (Donmar; Evening Standard Award for Best Musical for Passion); Piaf (Donmar, also Vaudeville/Teatro Liceo, Buenos Aires/Nuevo Teatro Alcalá, Madrid; Olivier nomination for Best Musical Revival, Hugo Award for Best Director, Clarín Award for Best Musical Production, ADEET Award for Best Production); The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick); Three Days of Rain (Apollo; Olivier nomination for Best Revival and Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Award nomination for Best Revival); The Lover and The Collection (Comedy); Elegies: a Song Cycle (Arts); The School for Scandal (Theatre Royal Bath); Salome (Headlong); Eric’s (Liverpool Everyman) and The Caretaker (Sheffield Crucible and Tricycle). Jamie was Associate Director of the Donmar (from 2008 to 2011) and Associate Artist at Headlong.

  Soutra Gilmour | Designer

  For Trafalgar Transformed: Richard III, The Pride, The Hothouse and Macbeth.

  Theatre credits include: Urinetown (St James and Apollo Theatres); The Commitments (Palace Theatre); Assassins, Merrily We Roll Along, Torch Song Trilogy (Menier Chocolate Factory); Cyrano de Bergerac (Roundabout Theatre, New York); Into the Woods (Open Air and Public Theater, New York); The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic); Reasons to Be Pretty (Almeida); Antigone, Double Feature in the Paint Frame, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, Strange Interlude (National Theatre); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Sheffield Crucible/Northern Stage); In a Forest Dark and Deep (Vaudeville Theatre); Inadmissible Evidence, Polar Bears, The Night Alive (Donmar Warehouse); The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick Theatre); Three Days of Rain (Apollo Theatre); The Pride (Royal Court); The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes (RSC at Wilton’s Music Hall); Piaf (Donmar Warehouse, Vaudeville and Teatro Liceo, Buenos Aires); The Lover and The Collection (Comedy); Our Friends in the North, Ruby Moon and Son of Man (Northern Stage); Last Easter (Birmingham Rep); Angels in America (Headlong/Lyric Hammersmith); Bad Jazz and A Brief History of Helen of Troy (ATC); The Birthday Party (Sheffield Crucible); The Caretaker (Sheffield Crucible and Tricycle); Petrol Jesus Nightmare #5 (Traverse/Kosovo); Lovers and War (Intima Teater, Stockholm); Hair and Witness (Gate); Baby Doll and Thérèse Raquin (Citizens, Glasgow); Ghost City (59E59, New York); When the World Was Green (Young Vic); Modern Dance for Beginners (Soho Theatre); Through the Leaves (Duchess Theatre and Southwark Playhouse) and The Shadow of a Boy (National Theatre).

  Opera credits include: Down by the Greenwood Side/Into the Little Hill (Royal Opera House); Anna Bolena, Don Giovanni and Mary Stuart (English Touring Opera); The Shops (Bregenz Festival); The Birds and Trouble in Tahiti (The Opera Group); El Cimarrón (Queen Elizabeth Hall); Saul and Hansel and Gretel (Opera North); A Better Place (English National Opera) and The Girl of Sand (Almeida Opera).

  Jon Clark | Lighting Design

  Theatre credits include: Othello, The Effect, Collaborators, A Woman Killed with Kindness, Greenland, Pains of Youth, Our Class, Women of Troy, The Cat in the Hat, Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel (National Theatre); Hamlet, The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, The Winter’s Tale, King Lear (RSC); King Charles III (Wyndham’s); Made In Dagenham (Adelphi); The Commitments (P
alace); I Can’t Sing! (Palladium); The Pride (Trafalgar); Three Days of Rain (Apollo, Olivier Award nomination); The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick); The Lover and The Collection (Comedy); A Streetcar Named Desire, A Season in the Congo, Street Scene, Been So Long (Young Vic); King Charles III, American Psycho, King Lear, The House of Bernarda Alba (Almeida); Trelawny of the Wells, Moonlight, Polar Bears (Donmar Warehouse); Ten Billion, Red Bud, Aunt Dan and Lemon, The Pride, Gone Too Far! (Royal Court); Into the Woods (Open Air Theatre); Salome (Headlong); Water, Silence (Filter Theatre); The Birthday Party (Lyric Hammersmith); Four Quartets (Lincoln Center, New York).

  Opera credits include: La Bohème, Orest (Dutch National Opera); Macbeth (Royal Danish Opera); Written on Skin (Royal Opera House/Aix-en-Provence); Footfalls/Neither (Staatsoper Berlin); Wozzeck, Caligula, The Return of Ulysses (ENO); The Perfect American (ENO and Teatro Real Madrid); Orest; Clemency (ROH2/Scottish Opera); Into the Little Hill (The Opera Group); L’Elisir d’Amore (Grange Park Opera).

  Dance credits include: new works for Will Tuckett, Cathy Marston, Karole Armitage, Bern Ballett, Scottish Dance Theatre, Requardt & Rosenberg and ZooNation

  Ben and Max Ringham | Sound and Music

  Off-West End Awards Best Sound Designer Winner 2014 (Ring, BAC); IMGA Excellence in Sound Design Award Winner 2014 (Papa Sangre II); Best Sound Design Laurence Olivier Award Nomination 2012 (The Ladykillers); Best Sound Design Laurence Olivier Award Nomination 2009 (Piaf); Best Overall Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, Laurence Olivier Award Winner (as part of the creative team); 2009 (The Pride).

  Theatre credits include: Minetti (EIF); Richard III (Trafalgar Transformed); Dawn French (UK tour); Fiction (UK tour); Blithe Spirit (Gielgud/US tour); I Can’t Sing!, (London Palladium); The Full Monty (Sheffield/Noel Coward); Jeeves and Wooster (Duke of York’s); Ben Hur (Watermill); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Michael Grandage Company); The Pride, (Royal Court, Trafalgar Studios, UK tour); Lungs (Berlin Schaubuhne); The Hothouse (Trafalgar Studios); Paper Dolls (Tricycle); Ring (BAC); Adler and Gibb, NSFW, 2071 (Royal Court); The School for Scandal (Bath Theatre Royal); The Motor Show (LIFT); What the Butler Saw (Vaudeville); Democracy (Sheffield Crucible, Old Vic); The World of Extreme Happiness, She Stoops to Conquer, Scenes from an Execution (NT); The Ladykillers (Gielgud, Vaudeville, UK tour); Painkiller (Lyric, Belfast); My City (Almeida); A Mad World My Masters, Little Eagles (RSC); Racing Demon, The Electric Hotel (Fuel Theatre); Glorious (Rajni Shah Productions); Les Parents Terribles (Donmar at Trafalgar Studios); Polar Bears (Donmar Warehouse); The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick); Three Days of Rain (Apollo); An Enemy of the People, A Taste of Honey, The Caretaker, Boeing Boeing, Glorious, The History Boys, Hamlet (Sheffield Crucible); Phaedra (Donmar Warehouse); Piaf (Donmar Warehouse, Vaudeville, Buenos Aires); All About My Mother, The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic); Contains Violence (Lyric, Hammersmith); TheLover/The Collection (Comedy); The Caretaker (Sheffield Crucible, Tricycle, UK tour); Amato Saltone, What If…?, Tropicana, The Architects, Dance Bear Dance and The Ballad of Bobby Francois (Shunt) and Henry IV Parts I and II (NT).

  Ben and Max are associate artists with the Shunt collective and two-thirds of the band Superthriller. In 2013 they designed ‘Papa Sangre II’ a sound based IOS game for digital arts company Somethin’ Else.

  Richard Mawbey | Wigs and Hair

  For Trafalgar Transformed: Richard III, The Hothouse and Macbeth.

  Theatre credits include: Evita, La Cage aux Folles, Frost/Nixon and Priscilla Queen of the Desert in New York. London theatre credits include: Urinetown, From Here to Eternity, The Commitments, Strangers on a Train, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merrily We Roll Along, Privates on Parade, South Pacific, Top Hat, Hairspray, Passion, Legally Blonde, End of the Rainbow, Piaf, Sweet Charity, Frost/Nixon, Guys and Dolls, The Producers, Kiss Me, Kate, Starlight Express and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Nationwide productions include: White Christmas, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, We Will Rock You, 9 to 5, and Little Britain Live.

  Film credits include: The Ghost Writer, Titanic, De-Lovely, Star Wars, The Mask of Zorro, Disney’s Santa Clause, and Richard Harris as Dumbledore in Harry Potter

  Television credits include: Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show, French and Saunders, Poirot, Miss Marple, Gavin and Stacey, House of Saddam and Lark Rise to Candleford.

  Richard is personal wigmaker to Sir Sean Connery, Kylie Minogue, Sheridan Smith and Dame Edna Everage.

  Richard has enjoyed a great career in hair, make-up and wigs. He also owns London’s Wig Specialities: www.wigspecialities.com

  Huw Evans | Musical Director

  Huw read music at King’s College London, gaining a Bachelor of Music degree while simultaneously studying piano with Elena Vorotko at the Royal Academy of Music. He then trained as a Music Director at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts where his credits included A Chorus Line, Spring Awakening and West Side Story.

  Huw has remained in London and now works as a freelance pianist, arranger and vocal coach.

  Theatre credits include: Alice By Heart (National Theatre); Little Shop of Horrors (White Bear Theatre) and Rent (Greenwich Theatre); for which he was awarded Best Musical Direction in the Broadway World Awards 2012. Recent Assistant Musical Director credits include: Oliver! (Sheffield Crucible); Evita national tour/Dominion Theatre) and Assassins (Menier Chocolate Factory).

  Darren Carnall | Choreographer

  Training: Allesley School of Dance before graduating from Laine Theatre Arts.

  Choreography credits: most recently Darren was Associate Choreographer for Jerry Mitchell’s production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Savoy Theatre. He was also Resident Choreographer at Ghost the Musical (Piccadilly Theatre).

  Theatre credits include: as a performer Darren was Dance Captain on Viva Forever! (Piccadilly Theatre), he also performed in Legally Blonde (Savoy Theatre); La Cage Aux Folles (Playhouse Theatre); Candide (ENO); The Lord of the Rings (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane); Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly Theatre); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (National Theatre); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (London Palladium); The Witches of Eastwick (Prince of Wales Theatre); Fosse (Prince of Wales Theatre); Chicago (Adelphi Theatre); Cats (Cyprus); Debbie Does Dallas (Oxford Old Fire Station); Beauty and the Beast (RSC) and Saturday Night Fever (UK tour).

  Television credits include: Assistant Choreographer for Breathless (ITV); Dresser in Miss Marple: A Sleeping Murder.

  Film credits include: Disney’s Cinderella (released 2015); Scenes of a Sexual Nature.

  Other credits: Artistic Director of West End Bares: www.westendbares.com

  Kate Waters | Fight Director

  Kate Waters is one of only two women on the Equity Register of Fight Directors.

  For Trafalgar Transformed: East Is East, Richard III, Macbeth, Hothouse, The Pride.

  For the NT: Othello Hotel, Home, Blurred Lines, Port, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (also West End); The Comedy of Errors, One Man Two Guvnors (also West End, Broadway and world tour); Frankenstein, Season’s Greetings, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Welcome to Thebes, Women Beware Women and War Horse (also West End).

  Recent work includes: Henry IV (Donmar Warehouse); The Last Goodbye (Old Globe, San Diego, California); Urinetown (St James Theatre); Don Giovanni (ROH); The Things We Do for Love (Bath Theatre Royal); From Here to Eternity (West End); The Commitments (West End); Julius Caesar and In The Same Deep Water As Me (Donmar Warehouse); Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, The Homecoming, King Lear (RSC); Noises Off (Old Vic and West End); Cabaret (West End); A The Duchess of Malfi and Sweet Bird of Youth (Old Vic); Written on the Skin (Aix en Provence and Royal Opera House, for Katie Mitchell); Henry IV Parts I and II (Peter Hall Company at Bath Theatre Royal); Anthony and Cleopatra, Henry VI, Richard III, Henry V and Dr Faustus (Shakespeare’s Globe); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ragtime and Lord of the Flies (Regent’s Park Open Air); Disgraced (Bush).

  Television includes: regular fight direction for Coronation Street and Hollyoaks.

  Penny Dyer | V
oice and Dialect Coach

  Recent theatre credits include: Assassins (Menier); Gypsy, Frankie and Johnny, Kiss Me Kate, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (CFT); The Wolf from the Door, The Mistress Contract, Circle Mirror Transformation, The Low Road (Royal Court); The Michael Grandage Company Season; Good People, Longing, 55 Days (Hampstead); Other Desert Cities, Sweet Bird of Youth, Speed the Plow (Old Vic); This House, Blood and Gifts (National); Roots, Salt Root and Roe, Anna Christie (Donmar); Posh, Clybourne Park (Royal Court/Duke of York’s); Becky Shaw, A Delicate Balance (Almeida); Julius Caesar (RSC); The Commitments (Palace); The Book of Mormon (Duke of York’s).

  Past theatre includes: Chicken Soup With Barley, Now or Later, The Pride, Mojo (Royal Court); Noughts and Crosses, The Crucible (RSC); A Streetcar Named Desire, Passion, Parade, After Miss Julie, The Blue Room (Donmar); Desire under the Elms, Saved, Spring Awakening (Lyric Hammersmith); Frost/Nixon, Piaf, Suddenly Last Summer (Donmar West End); The Shape of Things (Almeida); Abigail’s Party, A View from the Bridge, Shadowlands (Wyndhams); Absent Friends, The Little Dog Laughed (Coward); The Caretaker (Trafalgar Studios); All My Sons (Lyric); Legally Blond, Fiddler on the Roof, Porgy and Bess (Savoy); Boeing Boeing (Comedy); My Fair Lady (Drury Lane).

  Television credits include: The Last Kingdom, The Woman in Red, Code of a Killer, Coalition, Marvellous, The Missing, Tubby and Enid, Cilla, Tommy Cooper, The Girl, Mrs Biggs, The Café, The Slap, Downton Abbey, Gracie, Small Island, Margaret, Most Sincerely, Fantabuloso, Blackpool, The Deal.