Brief Encounter: Kneehigh Hit to Tour Australia

Kneehigh Theatre's Broadway and West End hit adaptation of Noël Coward's classic romantic drama Brief Encounter  will tour Australia, commencing in Adelaide on September 10, 2013.

Brief Encounter promises to take Australian audiences back to a bygone era of romance and the silverscreen with its classic Noël Coward tale.

Brief Encounter seamlessly switches between theatre, song, and black and white film footage ona giant screen, drawing its inspiration from Coward’s original stage play Still Lifeand DavidLean’s classic 1945 film Brief Encounterwhich starred Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson andwas nominated for three Oscars. Emma Rice presides over the marriage of these two as directorand adaptor.

The action takes place around Milford Junction railway station in a café where housewife LauraJesson has a chance meeting with doctor Alec Harvey. Although they are both already married,they gradually fall in love with each other. “I’m a happily married woman. Or rather I was until a fewweeks ago. This is my whole world and it’s enough, or rather it was until a few weeks ago."

In Kneehigh’s version, the love story of Laura and Alec is paralleled by two other couples alsoplaying out their lives and loves in the railway station tearoom. These intertwined narratives areinterspersed with some of Noël Coward’s typically debonair and witty songs to create a funny and touching show that showcases all of Kneehigh’s trademarktheatrical invention and knockabout humour.

As in Upstairs Downstairsand Downton Abbey, the romance between characters of differentclasses is fascinating. The lower class characters are flirty and open whilst the upper class onesare refined and repressed. The work provides a great insight into British society, marriage and therole of women in that era.

"I love romance, I also love fairy tales," says Emma Rice, director of the production. "In Still Life,later to become Brief Encounter, Noël Coward wrote a play about an affair. Not a sordid affair buta love affair, an impossible affair, a painful affair, an unacceptable affair. It is written with suchempathy, such observation, and such tender agony."

Based in Cornwall, Kneehigh has built a reputation for creating vigorous and popular theatre. In 2011 they performed The RedShoes at the Sydney and Perth Festivals, as well as an Adelaide season. Company B presented Kneehigh’s Tristan & Yseult as part of the 2006 Sydney Festival. 

An astounding dramatist, actor, writer, composer, lyricist, painter, and wit, Coward was the first Britpop star, the first ambassador of "cool Britannia." It is no secret that the story parallels theemotions felt by Coward as a gay man living in Britain in the 1930’s. Constrained by thejudgemental and prudish society of that era, Coward experienced first-hand the anguish of notbeing able to love freely.

Tour Dates 

Adelaide: Dunstan Playhouse, September 10 to 28

Canberra: Canberra Theatre, October 2 to 5

Melbourne Festival: The Athenauem, October 9 to 27

Sydney: The Concourse, October 31 to November 10

Wollongong: Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, November 20 to 23

Perth: The Regal, November 28 to December 1

Arts Projects Australia presents the national tour of Brief Encounter in association with their tour partners the State Theatre Company of South Australia and the Adelaide FestivalCentre Trust; Canberra Theatre Centre; Melbourne Festival; the Concourse Theatre, Sydney;Merrigong Theatre Company at Illawarra Performing Arts Centre; and the Regal Theatre, Perth.Director: Emma Rice Scenic and Costume Designer: Neil Murray Lighting Designer: MalcolmRippeth Projection Designers: Gemma Carrington and Jon Driscoll Original Music:Stu Barker Sound Designer: Simon Baker Producer for Kneehigh: Paul Crewes. Originally produced by David Pugh & Dafydd Rogers and Cineworld. Produced by arrangementwith David Pugh & Dafydd Rogers.