The Sea

A wild storm shakes a small East Anglian seaside village and sets off a series of events that changes the lives of all its residents. Set in the high Edwardian world of 1907, Edward Bond's The Sea is a fascinating blend of wild farce, high comedy, biting social satire and bleak poetic tragedy.

"Hilarious and haunting" The Independent

Edward Bond is recognised as one of the major figures of contemporary British theatre. He has written over 40 plays, including Early Morning, Bingo, The Fool, Lear and Saved, which are performed all over Europe.

"Jonathan Kent directs with zest, evoking the ever-present sea with the help of fine design by Paul Brown and some sensational sound, lighting and projection effects" The Daily Telegraph

The cast for The Sea in London features Eileen Atkins as 'Louise Rafi', David Haig as 'Hatch' and Marcia Warren as 'Jessica Tilehouse' along with Sarah Annis as 'Rachel', John Branwell as 'Carter', David Burke as 'Evens', William Chubb as 'Vicar', Mariah Gale as 'Rose Jones', Selina Griffiths as 'Mafanwy Price', Harry Lloyd as 'Willy Carson', Emma Noakes as 'Jilly', Russell Tovey as 'Hollarcut', Philippa Urquhart as 'Davis' and Jem Wall as 'Thompson'. Casting subject to change. The production is directed by Jonathan Kent with designs by Paul Brown, lighting by Mark Henderson and sound by Paul Groothuis.

Eileen Atkins - "A great actress speaking the lines of a great writer" The Daily Express

"The Sea begins like The Tempest with a wild storm (Jonathan Kent's staging throughout is admirable) in which a boy drowns because Hatch - the local draper and a part-time coastguard - refuses to rescue him, convinced that he is an alien preparing to take over the town. Eileen Atkins's Mrs Rafi is a splendid creation, an East Anglian Lady Bracknell who attempts to handbag the locals into shape; Marcia Warren as her companion Jessica Tilehouse is deliciously stroppy." The Mail on Sunday

David Haig - "Spectacular" The London Evening Standard

"Edward Bond has been scorned by British theatre - and scorned it right back - but his 1973 comedy The Sea is glinting, daft and brilliantly strange. It is set in a small coastal community in 1907, where progress is mostly a distant rumour and the class system holds together, just - like a window on the point of shivering to pieces... The play's images are ferociously comic... Bond's extraordinary language contains Blake, Lewis Carroll and imagist shafts all his own. His characters picture despair as an owl starving to death in a city, describe hope as a bloated rat transmogrified into a ratcatcher." The Sunday Times

Marcia Warren - "Marvellous" The Observer

"The Sea is both magnificent and a mess... Comedy, tragedy and surrealism tumble into one another... Apocalyptic visions are here both threatening and comic: the dreams of the draper are excellently conjured up by a boggle-eyed, apoplectic David Haig. Jonathan Kent, who is no minimalist, is the right director to project Bond's excesses - of plot, language and action: the evening begins on a roar, with the stage seen through a crashing tempest; it ends on a desert of grey slate. And he is directing actors who can turn in a second from preposterousness to desolation." The Observer

"Edward Bond's place in the pantheon of great English dramatists is re-established by this production" The Daily Express

The director of The Sea, Jonathan Kent, says: "Edward Bond is one of our most important living playwrights - and one of our most neglected. It is shameful that, since the early 1990s, his plays have received their first productions in France - and are performed all over Europe. In some cases, they still remain unperformed here in Britain. He is a theatrical visionary - complex but not complicated, direct, compelling and - let us not forget - at times, very funny. And in The Seas, he combines wild, high comedy with a mysterious dark poetry. His is a voice that we can ill-afford to ignore and I am delighted that, with this production, we are able to reintroduce his work to a whole new generation"