baskervilles today prog feature.mp3
Peepolykus, Neal Street Productions and West Yorkshire Playhouse present
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Adapted by Peepolykus and Steven Canny
Directed by Orla O’Loughlin
Designed by Ti Green
Lighting by Jackie Shemesh
Sound by Mic Pool
About the Show
An ancient family curse, a desolate moor, a spectral hound and a deranged killer on the loose. The Hound of the Baskervilles is the most celebrated Holmes story of all, a masterpiece of mystery and suspense. And lord it’s scary…really, really scary.
In 2007 Peepolykus broke box office records at West Yorkshire Playhouse with its production of Hound of the Baskervilles, completely selling out its entire 5 week run. After touring to Oxford Playhouse, Winchester Theatre Royal and Liverpool Everyman the show transferred to the West End for a season at The Duchess Theatre. A highly successful production, Baskervilles achieved great critical acclaim (see press quotes below) and introduced a whole new wave of audiences to the company’s trademark style of verbal surprise and visual ingenuity. See video section to find out what happened when the stage flooded during a performance!
Further Information
Jason Thorpe – Actor
Theatre includes: A day in the Death of Joe Egg, Library Theatre Manchester; The Magic Carpet, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith; His Dark Materials, Peter Pan, National Theatre: Monkey!, Young Vic London; Shoot Me in the Heart, Told by an Idiot; The World Cup Final 1966, BAC; Mirandolina, Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough; Servant of Two Masters, Crucible Theatre; Greed, the Clod Ensemble; Grimm Tales, Leicester Haymarket.
Television includes: Trial and Retribution (ITV), Sir Gadabout (BAFTA nominated) ITV; Mitchell and Kenyon (BBC); Rose and Maloney (ITV); Wire in the Blood (ITV); Armstrong and Miller (C4); The News Never Sleeps (Talkback Productions); Goodbye Mr. Steadman (ITV); The Queen’s Sister (C4); Casualty (BBC); The Bill (ITV).
Film: The 9 lives of Tomas Katz; l’inspiration; Jack and the Beanstalk – the real story.
Neal Street Productions – Producers
Established in 2003 by Sam Mendes, Caro Newling and Pippa Harris under an umbrella first-look deal with DreamWorks SKG, Neal Street Productions has a broad range of film and theatre productions in the making. Since their inception, the NSP theatre arm, headed up by Caro Newling and Producer, Beth Byrne, have co-produced the West End transfer of Sondheim and Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George from the Chocolate Factory and Schiller’s Mary Stuart from the Donmar Warehouse; David Ives’ All in the Timing at the Edinburgh Festival with Peepolykus; Owen McCafferty’s new version of JP Miller’s Days of Wine and Roses at the Donmar Warehouse; Nilo Cruz’ Pulitzer prize-winning Anna in the Tropics at Hampstead Theatre and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Fuddy Meers at Birmingham Rep and the Arts Theatre, West End. Projects ongoing include: Shrek the Musical with DreamWorks Animation and two newly commissioned plays in pre-production for ‘07.
The NSP film slate includes recent releases Starter for Ten, based on the novel by David Nicholls, in association with Playtone for HBO Film/BBC and Sam Mendes’ recent film, Jarhead, for Universal Pictures. Stuart: A Life Backwards based on the award-winning novel by Alexander Masters, and Things we Lost in the Fire starring Halle Berry and Benicio del Toro, are currently are in post-production; and a further four films are in development with Dreamworks, Universal and the BBC.
Steven Canny – Writer
A writer, dramaturg, director and producer. As a writer hiswork includes: A Dulditch Angel (tour), Mnemonic (R3 adaptation) and The Virtuous Burglar by Dario Fo (World Service adaptation). Directing includes:The Fire Raisers by Max Frisch with Jim Broadbent and Phil Daniels (Radio 3);A Conspiracy at Sevres by Charles Wood starring Geoffrey Palmer and Corin Redgrave; When You Cure Me by Jack Thorne (R3); Caesar! The Best of Mothers (Radio 4);The Pelican by August Strindberg (R3); Burglar Beware by Matthew Broughton (Union Chapel); Eleven Lessons For The Paranoid (BAC); Sports Shorts (Five Live);A Song for Edmond Shakespeare (R4); The Observed (BAC);Epicoene (Sanctuary);Rabbit Punching (GRiP theatre); An Act of Will (British Council tour and Edinburgh). Work as Associate Director and Dramaturg with Theatre de Complicite (1999-2005) includes:Measure for Measure (NT); The Elephant Vanishes (Tokyo, NY & London); Mnemonic (World Tours);The Noise of Time (World Tours);Light (European Tour); Genoa 01 (Royal Court).
Jackie Shemesh – Lighting Design
Graduated from Jerusalem School of Visual Theater. Designs lighting for Dance Theater and Opera. Recent Theatre productions include: “What we did to Weinstein” Tim Supple, London 2005. Wishuponastar, Akko Theatre Group, Berliner festshpile festival 2004. Othello for Haifa Theatre. The Town of the Little People Hakhan theatre Jerusalem 2006.
Recent works for Dance include: For Luca Silvestrini B for Body Place Prize Commission 2006 (and one of the five finalists); for Gisela Rocha Company/ Zurich Go Behind and Love Hate Reason and Me; for Constansa Macras/ Berlin Big In Bombay 2004. Wool Norrdance Company Sweden 2006. Various pieces for the Bathsheva Ensemble over the years of 1995-2005. For Yasmeen Godder/ Tel Aviv: Two Playful Pink. Strawberry Cream Gunpowder.
Recent works in Opera include: Sante LSO at St. Lukes London 2006. The Medium, Telephone Jerusalem Academy for Music. La Cenerntola ABAO Bilbao, Verther, Madam Butterfly, The Tel Aviv opera – Lightning Revival. Don Giovanni– The opera workshop, Tel Aviv.
Mic Pool – Sound Design
In a thirty year career in theatre sound, Mic has been resident at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, the Royal Court Theatre, Tyne Theatre Company and toured internationally with Ballet Rambert. He has designed the sound for over 350 productions including more than 200 for the West Yorkshire Playhouse where he is currently Director of Creative Technology. He received a TMA award in 1992 for Best Designer (Sound) for Life Is A Dream and was nominated for both the Lucille Lortel and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design 2001 for the New York production of The Unexpected Man.
Recent theatre credits include: The 39 Steps (Criterion Theatre, Tricycle Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Postman Always Rings Twice (Playhouse Theatre); Ying Tong (New Ambassadors Theatre); The Solid Gold Cadillac (Garrick Theatre ); Brand (RSC and West End); Pretending To Be Me (West Yorkshire Playhouse/West End); Art (West End/Broadway/worldwide); Shockheaded Peter (Cultural Industry world tour/West End); The Unexpected Man (RSC/West End/Broadway/Los Angeles); Another Country (Arts Theatre); Beauty and the Beast, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Seagull, Victoria, The Roundhouse Season of Late Shakespeare Plays (RSC); Three Thousand Troubled Threads (Stellar Quines, Edinburgh International Festival) Savages (National Youth Theatre at The Royal Court); Alice in Wonderland, Dead Funny, Bad Girls – The Musical, To Kill a Mockingbird, How Many Miles to Basra? , The Duchess of Malfi (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Homage to Catalonia (West Yorkshire Playhouse/ Northern Stage/Teatre Romea).
Video designs for theatre includes: Der Ring des Nibelungen (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden); Three Thousand Troubled Threads (Stellar Quines, Edinburgh International Festival); The Wooden Frock (Kneehigh); The Solid Gold Cadillac (West End); Dracula (The Touring Consortium); The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Wizard of Oz, Johnson Over Jordan, Crap Dad, Scuffer (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Dangerous Corner (West Yorkshire Playhouse/West End); Singin’ In The Rain (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Royal National Theatre/national tour); The Turk In Italy (ENO); The Ring Cycle (New National Theatre Tokyo); Il Tabarro, Chorus! (WNO); Of Mice and Men (Mind the Gap).
Television includes the sound design for How Wide is Your Sky (Real Life Productions for Channel Four); Lesley Garrett and Friends At The Movies (BBC).
Ti Green – Designer
Ti Green’s recent design work in theatre includes Coram Boy and The UN Inspector (Olivier, National Theatre); Separate Tables (Manchester Royal Exchange); Tamburlaine (Bristol Old Vic and The Barbican); Julius Caesar (RSC and Lyric Hammersmith), Coriolanus (RSC and Old Vic, London); Compact Failure (Clean Break); The Entertainer (Liverpool Playhouse); Paradise Lost and The Comedy of Errors (Bristol Old Vic); Where There’s a Will (Bath Theatre Royal Tour); The Taming of the Shrew (Nottingham Playhouse); and Bogus Woman (Red Room). For opera, she has designed Sante (LSO St. Lukes and Aldeburgh); The Barber of Seville (Grange Park Opera) and The Threepenny Opera (Pimlico Opera).
Orla O’Loughlin – Director
Orla was winner of the James Menzies Kitchin Directors Award, past recipient of the Carlton Bursary at the Donmar Warehouse and participant in the inaugural National Theatre Studio Directors’ Cut Programme. She will direct How Much is Your Iron? as part of the Young Vic’s opening season in April. Orla is Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre.
For the Royal Court, as International Associate: Small Talk: Big Picture (a collaboration with the BBC World Service), No farewell, …of the cities, Shining City, Orange Peel, Aquabar, The Sanchez Heurta Girl Killed Herself. For the BAC: The Fire Raisers, Sob Stories, Refrain, Go the Way Your Blood Beats, Norman. For the National Theatre Studio: Vienna Dreaming, Sam and Lucy, Let your Heart Break Open, Maps, The Mum Project.
Other work includes: Lorca: The Playwright, Lorca: The Poet (National Theatre), A Dulditch Angel (Eastern Angles), Redemption (New Dramatists), The Duchess of Suffolk (Globe), Carousel and Crazy for You (Beck Theatre), Seven Lears (The Sanctuary), The Comedy of Errors ( Embassy Theatre), The Love of the Nightingale (RADA).
Press Quotes The Hound of the Baskervilles
Peepolykus are unfailingly hilarious. Orla O’loughlins production leaves plenty to enjoy.
THE GUARDIAN
Peepolykus have the requisite energy and appeal eventually to use the script as a springboard into a more gut-bustingly hilarious and liberatingly reckless brand of zaniness.
THE TIMES
Packed with physical inventiveness, this Hound adapted by Stephen Canny and the company, takes eccentric multiple-characterisation and ridiculous wackiness to extremes.
THE INDEPENDENT
In the bleak midwinter, in the post-Christmas lull, silliness is next to godliness. And theatre doesn’t come much more sillier than The Hound of the Baskervilles, as presented by Peepolykus, a close-knit comedy outfit who more than live up to their faux-Greek name. Only the most po-faced Conan Doyle enthusiast will fail to enjoy this wonderfully barking spoof.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
In the hands of comic trio Peepolykus, The Hound of the Baskervilles becomes a wonderful farce. The chemistry between these clowns is electric.
METRO ****
The production has a mad hilarity that will make you feel quite sane.
THE SUNDAY TIMES
Peepolykus are a group of the most gifted performers you can hope to see. Baskervilles is performed with a sense of rare comic timing. The most difficult thing to decide about the show is whether the most impressive thing is the dazzling wordplay of the script or the outstanding physical comedy.
YORK EVENING POST
The production unites constantly inventive physical and verbal comedy with a cheeky respect for the original.
WHATSONSTAGE
Simple-seeming gags are transformed into theatrical gems. Not only are the actors technically accomplished, they also possess superhuman energies. Dazzling performances.
THE OBSERVER
The most popular of the Sherlock Holmes stories becomes pure comic bliss in this hilariously played adaptation from Peepolykus.
THE STAGE