ROGER McGOUGH will adapt a second Moliere comedy for the Liverpool Playhouse, following the success of last year’s acclaimed Tartuffe.
The Mersey Poet will transform 17th-century French prose into English verse in The Hypochrondriac, the piece its author was performing the night he died. Directed by the Everyman and Playhouse’s Gemma Bodinetz, it will open in June and tour the UK in the autumn.
Other highlights for the theatres’ summer season include Les Dennis, Tom Georgeson and Eileen O’Brien in JB Priestley’s classic comedy When We Are Married at the Playhouse. It will also star Dennis’s niece, Jodie McNee, best known locally for the role of Mary in 2007’s Liverpool Nativity, produced by the BBC.
Liverpool writer Laurence Wilson will see two of his works performed on the Everyman stage – Lost Monsters, about the inhabitants of an isolated house, and Spirits of the Stone, created with the community of Kirkby.
The Everyman and Playhouse saw a 28% increase in ticket sales from 2007 to 2008.
So far this year, 18% more seats have been sold when compared to the same period last year.
