Arcola Theatre today announces the London première of Frank McGuinness’s new play, Dinner With Groucho, from b*spoke theatre company. The play will make its world première at The Civic, Tallaght, as part of this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival, before touring to Belfast International Arts Festival and Oxford Playhouse and then playing at Arcola Theatre from 21 November to 10 December, with previews from 17 November. Loveday Ingram directs Ian Bartholomew as Groucho Marx, Ingrid Craigie as The Proprietor and Greg Hicks as T.S. Eliot.

Producer Alison McKenna today said: “b*spoke theatre company is delighted to return to the Arcola with Frank McGuinness’s magical new play. It marks our second production with the Arcola and is supported by Culture Ireland”

Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen today said: “We are very pleased to collaborate with one of Ireland’s most exciting theatre companies, with a strong direction from Loveday Ingram and an incredibly talented cast to gather in a fantastic play by one of our greatest living playwrights; Frank McGuinness. Dinner With Groucho will be one of the most exciting pre-Christmas treats on the London stage.”

b*spoke theatre company
Presents
DINNER WITH GROUCHO
Written by FRANK McGUINNESS

Cast includes: Ian Bartholomew (Groucho Marx), Ingrid Craigie (The Proprietor) and Greg Hicks (T.S. Eliot)

Director: Loveday Ingram; Set Designer: Adam Wiltshire; Costume Designer: Joan Bergin;
Lighting Designer: Paul Keogan; Choreographer: David Bolger;
Composer and Sound Designer: Conor Linehan

ARCOLA THEATRE, STUDIO 1
17 November – 10 December 2022
Press night: 21 November at 7pm

Two men, together, on the edge of heaven. In a strange restaurant, two American giants who revere each other, Groucho Marx and T.S. Eliot, meet for dinner. Both in their own ways great defiant spirits, they create magic and anarchy, revealing secrets and sorrows. The evening is presided over by the Proprietor, who seems to control the workings of the universe. Or does she? In Dinner With Groucho all is revealed. Or nearly so.

From Frank McGuinness, the award-winning writer of iconic plays such as Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and The Factory Girls comes this fast-paced fictional dinner date like no other.

Frank McGuinness is an Irish writer. He is known for his own plays, including The Factory Girls, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and Dolly West’s Kitchen, as well as adaptions of Racine, Sophocles, Ibsen, Garcia Lorca and Strindberg to critical acclaim. His production of Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me received an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play and Tony Award nominations for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play. His 1999 production of Dolly West’s Kitchen also received an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play. McGuinness has also received a Tony Award for Best Revival for his 1996 adaption of A Doll’s House, and a BAFTA nomination for Best Single Drama for A Short Stay in Switzerland. He has also published six collections of poetry and two novels and has been Professor of Creative Writing at University College Dublin since 2007.

Ian Bartholomew plays Groucho Marx. He is best known for his role as series regular Geoff Metcalfe on Coronation Street. His stage credits include The Homecoming (UK Tour), Half a Sixpence (Noël Coward Theatre/Chichester Festival Theatre), The Funfair (Home: Manchester), Mrs. Henderson Presents (Noël Coward Theatre/Theatre Royal Bath), Shakespeare in Love (Noël Coward Theatre), Richard III (Nottingham Playhouse/York Theatre Royal), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Nottingham Playhouse), Hello Dolly! (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Take Flight (Menier Chocolate Factory), Assassins (Sheffield Theatr), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Liverpool Playhouse), As You Like It, Mogadishu, Pygmalion, Widowers’ House, Mirandolina, King Lear, Doctor Heart, The School for Scandal and Winding the Ball (Royal Exchange, Manchester), The Power of Yes Futurists, Pravda, The Goverment Inspector, Schweyk in the Second World War, Guys and Dolls and The Beggar’s Opera (National Theatre). For television, his credits include New Blood, South Riding, Without Motive, Harry and Perfect Scoundrels; and for film: Denial, Shiner, Eisenstein, Esther Kahn and A Prayer for the Dying.

Ingrid Craigie plays The Proprietor. Her recent theatre credits include The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Lyric Hammersmith/Chichester Festival Theatre), Richard III (Lincoln Center, New York), Sweet Bird of Youth (Chichester Festival Theatre), Juno and the Paycock, A Month in the Country, The Mariner, A Woman of No Importance, Hay Fever, Celebration, Arcadia and The Deep Blue Sea (Gate Theatre, Dublin) and The Cripple of Inishmaan (Noël Coward Theatre/Cort Theatre, New York). For television, her credits include: Blood, Striking Out, The Running Mate and DDU; and for film: You Are Not My Mother, Death of a Ladies’ Man, The Delinquent Season, The Flag, Citadel and Sensation.

Greg Hicks plays T.S. Eliot, returning to Arcola Theatre following performances in An Enemy of the People, Richard III, Clarion, Small Craft Warnings and In Blood: The Bacchae. His other stage credits include Oklahoma! (Young Vic), Don Quixote (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Angels in America (Lyric Hammersmith), The Open House, Play Strindberg (Theatre Royal Bath), All’s Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, Little Eagles, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, A Winter’s Tale, King Lear, Macbeth, Poor Beck (RSC), Tamburlaine (Barbican), Messiah, King Lear, Waiting for Godot, The Homecoming (The Old Vic), Absolute Hell, Coriolanus, The Oresteia, The Romans in Britain and Acastos (National Theatre). For television, his credits include Burton and Taylor, Domina and The Bible; and for film: The Mercy, Son of God and Snow White and the Huntsman.

Loveday Ingram is a director, writer and adaptor. As a director, her theatre credits include Fatal Attraction (UK tour), Baskerville (National Centre for the Performing Arts, China/Liverpool Playhouse), Henry V (Storyhouse Chester), The Rover (RSC), These Shining Lives (Park Theatre), Outlying Islands, Lettice and Lovage (Theatre Royal Bath), When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal Haymarket), The Merchant of Venice (RSC/international tour), My One and Only (Piccadilly Theatre), Dead Funny, Three Sisters, Hysteria, Pal Joey, The Blue Room and Insignificance (Chichester Festival Theatre). She was Associate Director at Chichester Festival Theatre for three years and was the original Assistant Director on the stage musical Mamma Mia!.