2023 kicks in with Bill Bryson world premiere in Newbury
The Watermill is hitting the ground running with its 2023 season opener – the world premiere of a brand-new stage adaption of Bill Bryson’s award-winning memoir Notes From a Small Island, affectionately celebrating the quirks and eccentricities of British life.
It has been adapted by BAFTA and Olivier Award winning playwright Tim Whitnall (Les Dawson: Flying High – UK tour, Morecambe – West End, Best Possible Taste: The Kenny Everett Story – BBC4) and is directed by the Bagnor theatre’s artistic director Paul Hart.
It was originally due to open in September 2020, but was delayed due to the pandemic.
It will have its world premiere in Newbury playing from Friday, February 3, to Saturday, March 18.
What makes us love this country we call our own?
From Calais to Scotland, Bill travels the length and breadth of Britain. Why does the nation that produced Marmite, Gardener’s Question Time and people who say “Ooh lovely” at the sight of a cup of tea, hold such a special place in this American’s heart?
Notes from a Small Island spent three years in the Sunday Times bestsellers list, sold over two million copies and was voted on World Book Day by BBC Radio 4 listeners as the book that best represents our British identity.
With signature invention and imagination, the production will embrace the full breadth and playfulness of Bryson’s life-affirming travelogue in The Watermill’s fittingly intimate, quintessentially rural space.
Tim Whitnall said: “It’s been both a privilege and a delight to have distilled Bill Bryson’s hilarious and affecting 379-page travelogue into a two-act stage play.
“This wonderful book has been a firm favourite of mine since its publication, and I’m still pinching myself to believe I’ve been permitted anywhere near it as a playwright!”
Notes From A Small Island contains a wealth of wry observations and pithy insights – albeit recorded almost 30 years ago – that will resonate with a contemporary audience, particularly as Britons reassess their national identity in a post-Brexit, politically turbulent and technology-driven world.
Back in 1995, Bill set off on his road-trip to discover “for better and for worse” what might have changed since his first visit to these shores in 1973.
