Of Mice & Men
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…powerful, resonant production”★★★★ The Times
“I got you, and we got each other”. George and Lennie are migrants with a dream; a dream of a better life, a place where they can belong, where Lennie feels safe and George can be somebody. But this is the Great Depression, not many dreams come true in a time where a few have plenty but most have nothing. When the friends take a job on Curley’s farm, tragedy unfolds leading to a heart-breaking decision.
The production is both thoughtful and thought-provoking”
★★★★ WhatsOnStage
John Steinbeck’s classic novel is more than 80 years old, but with themes of economic migration, racism and prejudice, it remains a parable for our times.
A story of enduring friendship, this new production from Rep Associate Director and Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony Director, Iqbal Khan, focuses a 2023 lens on Steinbeck’s affecting tale of the crumbling American dream. His recent Rep productions include East is East and Tartuffe.
The set is sublime, the choral singing is spine-tingling and when the action comes, you are fully immersed in the story” ★★★★ West End Best Friend
Price
Tickets from £15
Presented by
Birmingham Rep, Leeds Playhouse and Fiery Angel.
Presented in arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd.
Written by
John Steinbeck
Directed by
Iqbal Khan
Running Time
2 hours 45 minutes including interval
Age Guideline
13+
Content Advice
This play contains sensitive content including offensive language and violence. Further information can be found here.
Access Performances
Audio Described Performance: Thu 6 Apr, 7.30pm (audio described by Julia Grundy and Carolyn Smith)
BSL Interpreted Performance: Fri 31 Mar, 7.30pm (interpreted by Harjit Jagdev)
Captioned Performance: Sat 8 Apr, 7.30pm (captioned by Stef Bell)
Relaxed Performance: Sat 25 Mar, 2.30pm, Thu 30 Mar, 7.30pm & Thu 6 Apr, 7.30pm
Access Pack
Education Pack
Special Offers
3 for 2: Add 3 shows into your basket and at checkout enjoy 33% off each production for Spring 2023 Events T&Cs apply – Find Out More
Teens Go Free: Receive one complimentary young persons ticket (13-19 years) when you book one standard ticket for selected productions. Discount will be applied automatically at checkout when you add both tickets to your basket. T&Cs apply – Find Out More
Fees & Charges
Please note there is a transaction fee of £2.50 on all payment types.
Production Shots
First Look Photos...
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Cast
Tom McCall
Tom trained at LAMDA.
Theatre credits include:
Starlings (HighTide), The Whip (RSC), King John (RSC), Son of Rambow (Other Palace Theatre/ Nuffield), Virilicus (Shop Front Theatre), Dido, Queen of Carthage (RSC), Titus Andronicus (RSC, The Barbican), Julius Caesar (RSC, The Barbican), Doctor Faustus (RSC, The Barbican), Don Quixote (West End, Garrick Theatre / RSC), The Alchemist (RSC, The Barbican), Oppenheimer (West End, Vaudeville Theatre/ RSC), The Shoemakers Holiday (RSC), Hag (Soho Theatre and national tour), This Happy Breed (Peter Hall season, Theatre Royal Bath), Ragnarok (Eastern Angles – Hush House), Baba Yaga (Bristol Old Vic), Pants on Fire’s Ovids Metamorphosis (Flea Theatre New York/UK tour), A Midsummer Summer Nights Dream (Squerryes Court), Freddie hearts Freddie (Southwark Playhouse), The Gift (Old Vic/WeBuyGold), Smile (Arcola Theatre), Almost Near (Finborough Theatre), Potholes (Theatre 503), Inches Apart (Theatre 503/WeBuyGold).
Screen credits includes: This Town (BBC), LUTHER: The Fallen Sun (Netflix), White House Farm (ITV), Call The Midwife (BBC), Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (Netflix), Wallander (BBC), The Musketeers (BBC), The Bill (ITV), Doctors (BBC), The Intern (Channel 4), Death and Taxes (Broken Barrel productions), Bloodshot (Lovelight Ltd).
Audio: Twelve Motives for Murder (Audible), Shadows of the Phosphorous Dawn (Audible), Owner of a Lonely Heart (Audible)
Other: Tom is Co-founder of award winning theatre company WeBuyGold and co-host and creator of popular podcast Desert Island Crisps.
Wiliam Young
Wiliam has been an active member Hijinx Theatre’s North Academy since 2014. During this time, he has trained with leading practitioners from across Wales and has performed in several Hijinx productions as well as undertaking acting and audio work for the likes of Clwyd Theatre and National Theatre Wales. He has acted in promotional films for Transport for Wales and CCW.
This production of Of Mice & Men will see Wiliam reprise the role of Lennie, having first performed it to excellent reviews in 2017 in august 012’s production (dir. Mathilde Lopez).
Wiliam is based in Holyhead, Anglesey, and has Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum and complex learning disabilities. He is a proud member of Mencap Môn and dedicates the role of Lennie to anyone with a learning disability who also loves performing but hasn’t had the opportunity to land any professional roles…yet.
James Clyde
Theatre includes: The Darkest Part of the Night (Kiln Theatre); Tamburlaine, Tartuffe, Timon of Athens, King Lear, Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet, Days of Significance, Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night and Matilda: The Musical (Royal Shakespeare Company); The Cutting Edge (Arcola Theatre); Touch (Soho); In the Depths of Dead Love (Print Room); Hamlet, Jane Eyre, The Art of Random Whistling (Young Vic); As You Like It, Hedda Gabler, Tobaccoland, The Candidate, Misfits, The Tempest, A Taste of Honey, Macbeth (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Twelfth Night, Hang (National Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing (New Shakespeare Company); God of Carnage, School for Wives (Nuffield Theatre); Dangerous Lady (Stratford East); The Illusion (Southwark Playhouse); Single Spies (Watermill); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Jane Eyre, After Mrs Rochester (Shared Experience/West End); Absolute Beginners (Lyric, Hammersmith); I Just Stopped By See the Man (Octagon); Ying Tong (West Yorkshire Playhouse/West End); The Lucky Ones, The Eleventh Commandment, A Going Concern (Hampstead) A Model Girl (Greenwich Theatre) All for Love, A Hard Heart (Almeida) Dreaming (Queens Theatre) Jack’s Out (Bush) The Gentleman from Olmedo (Gate) Hated Nightfall, Wounds to The Face (Royal Court) The Castle (Riverside) The Ecstatic Bible (Adelaide Festival) Scenes from An Execution (Barbican)
TV includes: Black Earth Rising, Leonardo, Above Suspicion: Deadly Intent, New Tricks, Boudicca, The Bill, London Bridge, Made in Heaven, Maigret, Mr. Thomas, Cluedo, Back Up, In Suspicious Circumstances, Between the Lines.
Film includes: Beauty, Anonymous, The Honeytrap, Cheese, Croupier, Your Night Tonight, Prick Up Your Ears, Glitch, Inheritance
Radio includes: Ying Tong: A Walk With the Goons, Anthony and Cleopatra: Make Death Love Me
Video Games includes: Battlefield Gothic Armada, Nioh, Codestrike, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Simon Darwen
Theatre credits include: Beginning by David Eldridge (Queens Theatre Hornchurch/Bath Theatre Royal), Sirens (Mercury Theatre), After Birth (North Wall), Missing People (Leeds Playhouse/National Theatre Tokyo), Skellig (Nottingham Playhouse), Much Ado About Nothing (Jamie Hendry Productions/NESC/International Tour), The Here and This and Now (Plymouth Drum/Southwark Playhouse), The Pitmen Painters (New Vic), Our Country’s Good (Out of Joint), Lizzie Siddal (Arcola), The Armour/Hotel Plays (Defibrilator), Flare Path (National Tour), Catch 22 (Northern Stage), Virgin (Watford Palace), King Lear (Theatre Royal Bath), Mad About The Boy (Young Vic/Bush Theatre), SourLips (Oval House), The Fifth Column, The Taming of the Shrew, What the Women Did (Southwark Playhouse), Love Love Love (Original Cast) (Paines Plough), Unrestless (Old Vic Tunnels), Accolade (Original Revival Cast) (Finborough Theatre), Ramshackle Heart (Public Theatre New York) Arse, Shove (Theatre 503), Mad Forest, The Wonder (BAC), The Merchant of Venice, The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC), Fanny & Faggot (Trafalgar Studios), Nikolina, Bedtime for Bastards (nabokov).
Television credits include: Top Boy, Years and Years, Britannia, Call the Midwife, Silent Witness, The Bletchley Circle, The Bill.
Film credit; The Great Escaper (released 2023)
Simon has also recorded numerous audiobooks and Radio Plays
Maddy Hill
Maddy trained at Rose Bruford College.
She played the hugely popular Nancy Carter in EastEnders for three years, for which she won Best Newcomer at the National Television Awards 2015 and Best Newcomer at the British Soap Awards 2014, as well as being nominated for Best Newcomer at the TV Choice Awards 2014. She reprised her much-loved role in 2021-22.
Maddy’s stage credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Southwark Playhouse and the title role in Matthew Dunster’s Imogen at Shakespeare’s Globe.
In 2021 Maddy featured in two acclaimed short films, Enjoy by Saul Abraham, and Run by Emma Miranda Moore. She recently completed shooting on Santiago in Portugal.
Edward Judge
Edward can currently be seen as Burns in the SKY Drama The Rising.
Theatre credits include: Manor (RNT), The Play that Goes Wrong (West End, UK & International Tour) , History Boys (Crucible Theatre), Avenue Q (Bath Theatre Royal & No 1 Tour), Spring Awakening (Lyric Hammersmith & Novello Theatre).
Television credits include: Ted Lasso, The Rising, Cursed, The First Team, Sherlock, You, Me & The Apocalypse, Galavant, Doctors, Holby City, Sarah Jane Adventures.
Film credits include: Wicked Little Letters, Tom & Jerry, Iron Sky II.
Reece Pantry
Reece has most recently been seen on screen in the role of Billy in The Barbara Met Alan (BBC/Netflix).
Other stage credits include but are not limited to Eli in Happiness, The Doctor in Lovesick (Directed by Marlie Haco); Angelo in The Comedy of Errors (The Maltings Theatre); Jamie in Who Cares (Just Add Milk Theatre); Sonny in One Under (GRAEAE Theatre Company) and Infante in Casino Royale (Secret Cinema).
You can listen to Reece on BBC Radio 4, where he plays Porgy in Porgy and Bess.
Stuart Quigley
Stuart trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
His credits include: Doctors (BBC), Uncle Vanya, Terroir, Everybody, Love, Measure
for Measure (Richard Burton Company), Dream in Colours – C4 Random Acts (Rural
Media) and Crossing the Line (GoFilmIt).
Lee Ravitz
Lee was born just outside London, and has currently returned to his home town.
Experienced writer; sometime dramaturg, ex academic historian. Has penned radio plays, featuring Tim West and Prunella Scales, lectured on 17th century poltergeists to the Society for Physical Research, and written articles for The Guardian on dystopian science fiction.
Theatre credits include: The House of Cenci, The Merchant of Venice, Love in the Time of Corona, Henry IV Part III, Teleportation and The Pilgrim’s Opera
Film and television includes: Love Without Walls, Unfounded, Forbidden History: The Dead Sea Scrolls, Witch Hunt: A Century of Murder, Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath.
Riad Richie
Riad trained at East 15.
Theatre includes: Tartuffe (Birmingham Rep); The Massacre at Paris, Tamburlaine Parts I & II (The Malthouse Theatre); Jabala and the Jinn (Lyric Hammersmith, Tour); The Comedy of Errors (RSC Tour); The Whip, A Museum in Baghdad (RSC); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare in the Squares); The Show in which Hopefully Nothing Happens (Unicorn Theatre); Tartuffe, Timon of Athens, Tamburlaine (RSC); Macbeth, Frankenstein (Ovalhouse); Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Royal Bath); Mark and the Marked, Getting There, Passenger, Merchant of Venice (Box Clever); Saturday Night Fever (Troxy, Future Cinema); The Scarlet Pimpernel (Tower of London); Dick Turpin, LOL, The Changeling (Clifftown Theatre).
Film Includes: Said in Passing (Forced Path Pictures); Romeo & Juliet (Camberwell Studios); Jude Starbeam and the Mind Mission (On the Button); Asylum; Nocturne (NFTS).
Radio: Splinter Cell: Firewall (BBC)
Stunts: Vikings: Valhalla, Lead Fencer for Disney in Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella. Combat for Adam Randalls iBoy, Jesse V Johnson’s Accident Man, Suj Ahmed’s The Gates of Vanity, Future Cinema with BBC’s The Musketeers and Martin Kemp’s Top Dog.
Riad has also appeared in various commercials globally.
Jake Benson
Jake recently appeared as an actor/musician in The Dog With Two Dads, a newly commissioned LGBTQ+ children’s show from Little Earthquake and Birmingham MAC. He also featured in Years and Years (BBC/HBO).
Theatre credits include: Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Greenside, Edinburgh); Macduff in Macbeth (UK Tour); Hannay in The 39 Steps (The Old Joint Stock); Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life (The Old Joint Stock); Ray Funnel in All Change at Ashford (Site specific, Kent); Male Lead in The Giant’s Loo Roll (Greenwich) and various roles in Horrible Histories: Wicked Warwick (Warwick Castle).
Film & Voice credits include: The King’s Man (Matthew Vaughn); Venus (Andrew McGee); Various characters in the LEGO video game series; Dorian Gray in The Picture of Dorian Gray (Shadows at the Door); and is a main cast member of The NoSleep Podcast.
Creative Team
Director
Iqbal Khan
Iqbal Khan
Iqbal Khan is an Associate Director of Birmingham Rep, an Associate Artist of Box Clever Theatre Company, and the Artistic Director of the 2022 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony.
He has worked extensively with the RSC, as well as directing for opera and classical music events. Credits include East is East (Birmingham Rep, National Theatre), Tartuffe (Birmingham Rep, with RSC), Otello, The Wildman of the West Indies and Shakespeare at The Bowl. He has directed in Paris, Japan (awarded a year long prestigious fellowship, based in Tokyo), had recent residencies and delivered lectures at Michigan State, La Fayette, Nanjing, and was the 2019 Michael Douglas Visiting Artist at UC Santa Barbara.
Set & Lighting Designer
Ciarán Bagnall
Ciarán Bagnall
Costume Designer
Kay Wilton
Kay Wilton
Kay worked for 30 years as a freelance designer/ maker for theatre, film, ballet and opera including shows at The Rep, Birmingham Royal Ballet and film and opera with director Ken Russell.
She joined The Rep as full time maker, milliner and costume supervisor in 2013 and was appointed head of department in 2017.
This was also the year that The Rep created NATIVITY! The Musical, one of her favourite shows to work on, well worth all the effort it took to create. The show is a joy to work on as well as to watch. It is everything that a Christmas show should have and the sparkle and shine we all need just now.
Composer & Sound Designer
Elizabeth Purnell
Elizabeth Purnell
Movement & Fight Director
Yarit Dor
Yarit Dor
Puppet Director, Designer & Maker
Michael Crouch
Michael Crouch
Michael is a Birmingham based artist who specialises in street puppetry. He is the Artistic Director for the puppetry company, Creature Encounters. Previous clients have included BBC, The Royal Family, The Royal Opera House, and the London 2012 Olympics.
Casting Director
Annelie Powell
Annelie Powell
Associate Director
Caroline Wilkes
Caroline Wilkes
Production Manager
Jennifer Taillefer
Jennifer Taillefer
Voice & Dialect
Ellen Hartley
Ellen Hartley
Resident Director (Tour)
Laura Ryder
Laura Ryder
Creative Enablers
Laura Ryder
Laura Ryder
Thomas Crowhurst
Thomas Crowhurst
Louise Stokes
Louise Stokes
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