The Wolf From The Door

Description

We don't actually drink coffee at my coffee morning. - What do you do, then? - We discuss the violent overthrow of the government. Also, there's flower arranging. In this intensely imaginative and daringly brave-thinking play, award-winning playwright Rory Mullarkey imagines a wild road trip across Middle England. Together, Lady Catherine and her young protege Leo enlist every tearoom, hot yoga class and Women's Institute group on a mission to change the country forever. This play was the 2014 Pinter Commission and the winner of the George Devine Award. It received its world premiere production at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs on 10 September 2014, starring Anna Chancellor as Lady Catherine and directed by James Macdonald.

Rory Mullarkey won the 2014 George Devine Award for his play The Wolf from the Door and was the recipient of the Pinter Commission in 2014 - an award given annually by Lady Antonia Fraser, Harold Pinter's widow, to support a new commission at the Royal Court. He was the Royal Court's writer-on-attachment in 2010 and has been closely associated with the theatre's international work, translating Russian-language plays from Latvia, Russia and Ukraine, including Aleksey Scherbak's Remembrance Day as part of the 2011 International Season and for a number of staged readings. His first full-length play, Cannibals, opened at the Royal Exchange Manchester in 2013, where he became the youngest playwright to have his work performed on their main stage. In 2014, Rory Mullarkey won the Harold Pinter Playwriting Prize, the George Devine Award (jointly with Alice Birch) and the James Tait Black Prize for Drama for his play Cannibals, published by Methuen Drama.

Mullarkey has fun with the juxtaposition of quaint English custom and unadulterated savagery, and he offers some hilarious dialogue. . . . Mullarkey has considerable talent . . . exhilarating * Daily Telegraph * fervent and bracingly original . . . laced with exuberant absurdity and moments of twisted humour . . . there's a fierce freshness in his writing that suggests he's a young playwright to watch. * Evening Standard * rallying, angry and necessary * The Stage * Rory Mullarkey's free-spirited daub of a nationwide road trip is a Poliakoff-style fantasia of violence and revolution . . . He's a promising new talent. * Whatsonstage * Funny, provocative and engagingly eccentric * Time Out * Mullarkey certainly has an original voice * Financial Times *