The stage adaptation based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel will open in Kingston upon Thames before tour to Royal & Derngate, Malvern Theatres, Bristol Old Vic, and Chichester Festival Theatre.
Full casting has been announced for the upcoming stage adaptation of Nobel Prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, which will run at the Rose Theatre in Kingston from the 20th September until the 12th October ahead of a UK tour.
Directed by Christopher Haydon and adapted for the stage by Suzanne Heathcote, the production will star: Amelie Abbott (Hannah/Chrissi), Susan Aderin (Miss Emily), Matilda Bailes (Ruth), Nell Barlow (Kathy), Maximus Evans (Philip), Angus Imrie (Tommy), Princess Khumalo (Laura), Emile Patry (Miss Lucy/Madame), and Tristan Waterson (Rodney/Alfie).
What if you discovered your whole reason for being was not about your life but about making someone else’s possible? Your dreams, your desires, your love for another, all of them irrelevant in a world that values only what you give, without question or condition, to someone you’ve never met and will never know.
Memory and reality collide in this stunning new staging that challenges us to think about what it means to be human. What it means to have hope and heart — to love and to lose.
Talking about the stage adaptation, Kazuo Ishiguro said, “I’m filled with excitement by news of the upcoming production of Never Let Me Go. Suzanne Heathcote is a superb writer for both stage and screen. Christopher Haydon directed a beautiful adaptation of my The Remains of the Day not long ago. And the arrival of this new version of Never Let Me Go feels particularly well-timed. Its central question – How do we find and hold onto love in a world ruled by out-of-control science and savage hierarchical structures? – feels even more haunting today than when I wrote the novel twenty years ago. I look forward to discovering how this wonderfully talented team will re-imagine the story for the stage and for our time.”
The show is a co-production with Bristol Old Vic, Malvern Theatres, and Royal & Derngate, Northampton. The production will also be part of Chichester Festival’s upcoming Winter Season, with tickets going on sale there in September.
In addition, Olivier Award nominee Marisha Wallace (Guys & Dolls) has recorded the title song for the production. While Wallace does not appear live on stage she does offer her vocals to the recording of this original song, which features in the play.
Christopher Haydon, Artistic Director of the Rose Theatre, who directs the production said: “Never Let Me Go has been among my favourite novels since I first read it two decades ago. It is an achingly beautiful story of how we maintain hope, and continue to love in the face of a hostile world. It’s become one of the world’s best loved novels and has all of the elements of a great piece of theatre.”
To book tickets for the show’s run at the Rose Theatre visit: https://www.rosetheatre.org/whats-on/243/based-on-the-novel-by-kazuo-ishiguro/never-let-me-go