Gloucestershire arts organisations announce exciting new collaboration

The comedies will tour nationally following their runs at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham and Barn Theatre, Cirencester

The Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham and Barn Theatre, Cirencester have announced two new comedies which will be co-produced by the Gloucestershire based companies. The Importance of Being Earnest and The Hound of the Baskervilles will open at the venues prior to planned national tours of socially distanced theatres.

The upcoming collaborations were spearheaded by producer and Everyman Theatre's Chief Executive Mark Goucher and the Barn Theatre’s CEO & Artistic Director Iwan Lewis and have been made possible, in part, by The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Arts Council England’s recent announcement that the two theatres will be receiving funding from the Government's £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF).

Both theatres have been open since the easing of lockdown restrictions, with the Barn Theatre presenting Private Peaceful and Marry Me A Little and the Everyman Theatre hosting The Times Cheltenham Literary Festival and the recently announced Tweedy’s REDUCED Pantomime. The Importance of Being Earnest and The Hound of the Baskervilles will launch a new season of work in 2021 designed to welcome audiences into the new year in a safe and socially distanced way.

Speaking about the collaboration Iwan Lewis, Artistic Director, said: “It’s a thrill for us to be able to work with Mark Goucher and the Everyman Theatre again and to bring two of our biggest hits at the Barn Theatre to a wider audience throughout Gloucestershire and the country. These are fantastic Built by Barn productions that deserve to be seen by as many people as possible.”

Mark Goucher, Chief Executive of the Everyman Theatre, added “The Barn Theatre has a great track record and are renowned for the quality of the work they present. We’re very pleased to share this work and ensure that they can be enjoyed in our historic theatre.”

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“The energetic, two man staging” (The Stage) of Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest will run at the Everyman Theatre from the 6th to the 16th January before embarking on a national tour.

Filled with rapid quick-changes, tap dancing, fabulous frocks and enough tea to sink a ship, The Importance of Being Earnest is a “laugh out loud riot” where anything that could go wrong, will go wrong!

The Hound of the Baskervilles will open at the Barn Theatre from the 13^th January and run to 7^th February before transferring to the Everyman Theatre from the 10th of February and run to the 27th before touring nationally.

Written by John Nicholson and Steven Canny (the hit comedy team Peepolykus) the production first premiered at the Barn Theatre in 2018. The “barking mad,” non-stop, laugh-a-minute farce finds Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective thrust into hilarious adventures with a diabolical hound of supernatural origin.

Tickets for both productions are on sale now and available via the Everyman Theatre box office on 01242 512515 or everymantheatre.org.uk and the Barn Theatre box office on 01285 648255 or barntheatre.org.uk.