After bringing Sunrise for the Blind to the Tristan Bates Theatre in February, playwright, performer, actor and producer Lee Lomas will stage his latest play, Killing Nana, at London’s Hen & Chickens Theatre next month. The dark comedy about a complicated love triangle runs at the north London venue from 9 to 13 April 2019. Book your tickets now!
Lomas’ latest production, staged by 1956 Entertainment, promises to be a cynical comedy-drama exploring the effect anxiety can have on the brain, and how that twists what is real and what is not.
Stephen is in his late twenties, he spends the majority of his time in his dressing gown, staring at the television and drinking copious amounts of tea. Keeping him company, or suitably irritated, are Kimmy and Anne, girlfriend and Nana’s carer. The trio’s lack of love is made up for by a need for unarticulated, dark sexual desire and a lust for control over one another. Driven by social anxiety, sexual confusion and dysfunctional relationships, three people dream of murdering Nana.
Playwright Lee Lomas also acts, and boasts credits including Coronation Street, Shameless, The A Word, Casualty and Happy Valley. He recently played Father Marcus in long-running C4 drama Hollyoaks. Lomas will also star as Stephen in Killing Nana. He previously starred in productions including Sunrise for the Blind, Oliver Twist and Port.
Speaking to us about the importance of bringing working class stories to the stage, during the run of Sunrise for the Blind, Lomas said:
“Where I come from, these pockets of society that I and many other working class people come from are being forgotten about, or rather, STILL being forgotten about. The ignorance and lack of empathy towards the working class, not just in the arts but in society, is unacceptable. It’s deeper than ‘being poor,’ it’s a completely different frame of mind for most people, this idea that you can never amount to anything or certain things in life aren’t for people like us.”
Killing Nana runs as part of a spring season at The Hen & Chickens Theatre that also includes The Haunting of 47, Theatre Festival Pending and The Colourful Greens. It’s also one of a number of plays bringing working- and benefits-class stories to the stage this spring, including Starved, by Lomas’ Sunrise for the Blind co-star Michael Black (Bread and Roses Theatre) and the double-bill of Killymuck and Box Clever at Bunker Theatre.
About 1956 Entertainment
Lomas launched 1956 Entertainment, which was originally 1956 Theatre, in 2013. Since then, the company’s output has included a rep season of four shows – Little Women, Lomas’ Juke Box Baby, an adaptation of Hitchcock’s The Lodger and new piece The Wolf – in Manchester, a production of Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago, noir murder mystery Pudding Black, a re-imagining of Oliver Twist and Sunrise for the Blind.
