News: Watermill Theatre announces cast for Notes from a Small Island

The Watermill have announced the full cast of the 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, 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). Directed by The Watermill’s Artistic Director Paul Hart, designed by Katie Lias, and produced in association with Simon Friend Entertainment, Notes from a Small Island kicks off the Newbury-based award-winning theatre’s spring season, and will star Olivier-nominated Mark Hadfield (Thérèse Raquin – Olivier, NT, Into the Woods – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), as ‘Bill Bryson’.

Starring alongside Mark in this world premiere, playing from Friday 3 February to Saturday 18 March, are Bryony Corrigan (The Play That Goes Wrong – West End & Broadway, Magic Goes Wrong & Peter Pan Goes Wrong – West End), Wendy Nottingham (Vera DrakeMr SelfridgePeaky Blinders), Anne Odeke (As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor & The Comedy of Errors – Shakespeare’s Globe), Steve Pinder (Brookside, C4, Wicked – UK and Ireland tour), Akshay Sharan (Jack Absolute Flies Again – National Theatre, 2018 Stage Debut Award for ‘Best Actor in a Play’ for The Reluctant Fundamentalist –Yard Theatre) and Hayden Wood (The Play That Goes Wrong Doctor Who: Time Fracture – West End, Richard II – Arcola).

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 playfulnessof Bryson’s life affirming travelogue in The Watermill’s fittingly intimate, quintessentially rural space.

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