Hot on the heels of the star-studded UK premiere of Edmond, Intra Muros, the latest from multi Moliere Award-winning French playwright Alexis Michalik, is received its UK premiere at London’s Park Theatre with a cast including Olivier Award nominee Summer Strallen. Scroll through our photo galleries – and then get booking!
Full of Michalik’s trademark sharp wit and extraordinary method of storytelling, this metatheatrical production is directed by Ché Walker (writer of Been So Long, Flesh Wound, Crazy Love and The Frontline) who also features as the director within the play, Richard.
Walker is joined onstage at the Park Theatre by Summer Strallen as Alice, Victor Gardener as Angel, Emma Pallant as Jane and Declan Perring as Kevin. Popular jazz artist Rio Kai provides live music and digital sound mixing as an on-stage DJ.
Ageing thespian Richard is preparing to direct his first theatre class in a maximum security prison, assisted by his former-actress ex-wife Jane and an inexperienced social worker called Alice. When only two inmates turn up he decides to go ahead with the class nonetheless – and so begins a captivating and darkly comic exploration of life, within the walls.
Alexis Michalik is an author, actor and director with previous writing credits including Le Porteur d’Histoire, which has run for over 1500 performances to date and played around the world, as well as Le Cercle Des Illusionnistes. For these two pieces, Michalik received the Beaumarchais du Figaro Prize, the Jeune Théâtre de l’Académie Française Award and two coveted Molière Awards.
In 2016, Michalik wrote and directed Edmond, inspired by Edmond Rostand‘s 1897 classic Cyrano de Bergerac. It went on to win five Molière Awards, recently celebrated its 800th performance in Paris and has also been released as a feature film. The UK premiere production of Edmond directed by Roxana Silbert and starring Freddie Fox, Josie Lawrence, Henry Goodman and Chizzy Akudolu recently opened at Birmingham Rep and is currently touring to York, Northampton, Cambridge and Richmond.
Intra Muros first opened in 2017 at the Théâtre 13in Paris before transferring to the French capital’s larger Théâtre la Pépinière, where it continues to sell out today.
Show photos
Production photography by Edward Johnson.
Bios
Award-winning writer, director and actor Ché Walker made theatrical history with The Frontline (2008), the first contemporary-set new play to be performed at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. His play Klook’s Last Stand premiered at Park Theatre in 2014, before playing at the NAMT Festival in New York in 2017. His musical adaptation of Been So Long, which he also directed, premiered at the Young Vic and his own feature film adaptation starring Michaela Coel and Arinzé Kene (bought by Netflix) opened last year’s BFI London Film Festival. Further writing credits include Crazy Love (Paines Plough) and Flesh Wound (Royal Court, winning both the George Devine Award and the Arts Council Writer of the Future Award 2003) which has been translated and produced worldwide.
Olivier Award-nominated actress Summer Strallen is known for leading West End stage roles in Top Hat, The Sound of Music, Young Frankenstein, The Drowsy Chaperone, Guys and Dolls, The Boy Friend, Love Never Dies, Cats, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. On TV, her credits include Hollyoaks in which her character Summer Shaw auditioned for and won the role of Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music which Strallen went on to play on stage.
Intra Muros runs until 4 May 2019
Victor Gardener’s recent theatre credits include But Still It Goes On and Fog (Finborough Theatre), Frank Sent Me (Soho Theatre),Enjoy (Theatre Royal Bath) and Journey’s End (Mercury Theatre Colchester). He appeared on television in Les Miserables, Press, True Horror, and as a series regular in Hollyoaks and Mr Selfridge II. His film work includes Misbehaviour, Farming and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Declan Perring’s theatre credits include Sam, The Good Person (Bunker Theatre), Our Boys and Early Birds (Q Productions), The Revenger’s Tragedy (Nottingham Playhouse), Screens (Theatre503) and Belfast Boy (Arcola Theatre).
Emma Pallant’s recent theatre credits include A Christmas Carol (RSC), Lava (Nottingham Playhouse), Wind in the Willows (Rose Theatre, Kingston) and Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors and Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe). Her television work includes Casualty, Father Brown, Holby City and Doctors.
Award-winning bassist Rio Kai is a prolific fixture in the London jazz scene, playing in such bands as SEED Ensemble and Nerija, as well as hosting a jazz night at Grow, Hackney. A recent winner of the Best Newcomer of the Year Award with Nerija, Rio’s playing style includes foundations of jazz coupled with energetic rhythmical phrases and blistering lines as well as bowed work.
Rehearsal photos
