2008 Season
The Love&Madness Ensemble looks at the value of human life.


La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler
in a new translation by Neil Sheppeck

Banned for over 20 years, Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde is a sophisticated, coolly savage and ironically humorous fairground ride through human sexuality. Repositioning the play in a contemporary European city, and employing cross-gender casting, Sheppeck's exciting new adaptation charts the love lives of a series of inter-related characters whose complex and frequently very brief relationships eventually join them all together. La Ronde's original production in 1903 caused one of the greatest scandals in the history of German theatre, complete with obscenity trials, physical battles and right-wing canvassing to have the play withdrawn. Contains scenes of an adult nature and moments of nudity.

Neil Sheppeck is the founder and Artistic Director of Love&Madness. His first play Sweetness Follows ('Sheppeck has written a truly shocking drama about love' - British Theatre Guide) was presented by Love&Madness at The Edinburgh Festival in 2002. Other plays include Two Noblemen of Norfolk, and an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Gambler.

His directing credits include: The Taming of the Shrew, The Butterfly's Evil Spell, Macbeth, Sweetness Follows, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Playboy of the Western World, and Frankenstein.


Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
A new adaptation by David Cottis

Trapped in a cycle of povery and crime, exploited, neglected and stuck between the horrors of the workhouse or the streets, life looks bleak for orphan Oliver Twist. Brilliantly conjuring up London's foggy, fetid streets, this fast-moving adaptation doesn't shrink from portraying the harsh realities of the Victorian underworld whilst telling a tale full of hope and redemption. Remaining utterly true to Dickens' novel, this adaptation will surprise those unfamiliar with the story and delight those who know it well.

David Cottis is a freelance writer and director based in London. Since 1990, the company Instant Classics has produced his adaptations of Aristophanes' Lysistrata and The Birds ('snappier than a crocodile at a kebab party' - Whats On), Moliere's Amphitryon and Cervantes' Don Quixote ('a daunting task but Instant Classics have done it brilliantly' - Three Weeks). He wrote book and lyrics for the musical A Man of Affairs, which was shortlisted for the Vivian Ellis Award. For six years he was Literary Manager of the award-winning Etcetera Theatre in Camden Town, and has taught at the Universities of East Anglia and Northampton, Mountview Academy and City University London.

Abigail Anderson is a freelance director with more than fifty productions to her credit in London and regionally ('one of the most exciting and eclectic young directors in the UK' - Oxford Times). Recent work includes: Between the Dark and the Daylight, ghost stories in the London Bridge vaults; Sweet Witchery, a gothic evening performed on a canal barge; Clamjamfry, a specially commissioned show performed in a Mayfair Art Gallery; You Don't Need to Know That..., a devised slapstick show about the Criminal Justice System which toured nationally; Physick Lies Bleeding, a satirical comedy from 1697 at Apothecaries' Hall in the City of London; Romeo and Juliet and A Christmas Carol for Creation Theatre Company in Oxford; and the world premiere of Tennessee William's Like Candles to the Sun in the Platform Series at the Cottesloe, Royal National Theatre. Abigail has also worked as an Assistant Director for the RSC and Shakespeare's Globe. She is presently directing Art on tour for Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmund's. Oliver Twist will be Abigail's Love&Madness debut.



Photos by Luke Varley