Timely take on tale by Dickens

The Touring Consortium Theatre Company will be presenting A Tale Of Two Cities at Nottingham's Theatre Royal from November 22-26.

Adapted by Mike Poulton, it has original music by Oscar-winning composer Rachel Portman, and directed by James Dacre.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of Light, it was the season of darkness… It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair - we had everything before us! We had nothing before us!”

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This is a production of Charles Dickens’s literary masterpiece and will be visiting the city as part of a national tour.

Jacob Ifan will be making his professional theatre debut as Charles Darnay. Jacob is best known for playing the lead role of PC Jake Vickers on the BBC’s recent TV series Cuffs. Joseph Timms, whose credits include Twelfth Night and Richard III (Donmar on Broadway), Privates on Parade (Noel Coward Theatre) and The Hudsucker Proxy (Nuffield/Liverpool Everyman), will play Sydney Carton.

Dickens considered his novel to be the best story he had ever written. Interweaving one family’s intensely personal drama with the terror and chaos of the French Revolution, it is an epic story of love, sacrifice and redemption amidst horrific violence and world changing events.

James Dacre said: “Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 as a meditation on politics and power, the individual versus the system and the private versus the public. Mike Poulton, Rachel Portman and I first mounted this adaptation in the aftermath of the Arab Spring to cast a light on the protests, fanaticism and political unrest that were spreading across the world at that time.

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“Our decision along with Jenny King, Producer of The Touring Consortium, to revisit the production during this year of elections, referendums and revolutions across the world is motivated by a shared belief that great historical dramas can play an important role in contemporary political conversations by emotionally engaging audiences in human stories, countering the disaffection that seems to dominate so much of today’s political debate. Theatre and music can be imbued with a passion that a novel cannot capture and Royal & Derngate and Touring Consortium’s A Tale of Two Cities aims to focus on the humanity of Dickens’ novel in a way that gives the historical events an immediacy and urgent relevance for today’s audiences.”

Call the box office on 0115 9895555.

Photo by Robert Day