Lovesong from acclaimed playwright Abi Morgan played at the Drum Theatre Plymouth 30th September to 15 October 2011, then opened in Washington DC in Autumn 2011 followed by a run at Sheffield Crucible from 19th October, before transferring to the Lyric Hammersmith, London where it was captured by Digital Theatre. When you think you're going to die, it becomes very clear what you need to stay alive, and you don’t need as much as you think But the writing is sometimes vague or twee where it needs to be vivid. The desire to speak generously of universal experiences robs the play of a dense and satisfying specificity. Of the characters only William - played with great conviction and fluency by Edward Bennett - feels truly magnetic. Lovesongby Abi Morgan was presented by Banbury Cross Players at The Mill Theatre from 5th to 8th July 2017.

The Mistress Contract at The Royal Court Theatre". The Royal Court Theatre. Archived from the original on 15 September 2013 . Retrieved 13 September 2013. As in Richard Bean's Honeymoon Suite, not only are scenes alternated but bleed into each other so that the older pairing view their younger selves and vice versa. After initial ambitions to become an actress herself, she decided to become a writer while reading drama and literature at Exeter University. [5] She then took a postgraduate writing course at the Central School of Speech and Drama. [4] Writing career [ edit ] Theatre [ edit ] Leanne Rowe and Edward Bennett, lithe but quarrelsome, are zigzagged together in an embrace. They are broken apart as the mellifluous, sinuous Siân Phillips scythes between them. A jagged dance of pain performed by Phillips is taken up and transformed by the younger couple and by distinguished, haggard Sam Cox. The quartet complete one another's actions and one another: an object passes from old hand to young, from present to past; a gesture or phrase is echoed. Time travel, which is a topic of conversation, becomes an event as the generations meld.LOVESONG sees acclaimed theatre company Frantic Assembly join forces with celebrated writer Abi Morgan for a new play about lifelong love. Lovesong intertwines a couple in their 20s with the same man and woman a lifetime later. Their past and present selves collide in this haunting and beautiful tale of togetherness. There's sensitive work around him from Leanne Rowe, Sam Cox and the spry Siân Phillips. The production is deftly constructed, and some sequences are delicately balletic. Many people will find it deeply moving, and the subject matter is undeniably poignant.’

Siân Phillips is one of Britain's most respected actors. Her recent stage work includes the role of Juliet in Juliet and her Romeo (Bristol Old Vic), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Broadway) and Calendar Girls (West End/tour). Her screen work includes her BAFTA-winning role in I, Claudius (BBC TV), as well as such seminal works as Goodbye Mr Chips, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Dune. She has also performed live with musician Rufus Wainwright at the Old Vic. This play is a brilliant portrayal of the love shared between two individuals. How it is bittersweet and unfortunate but also fills you with a particular warmth. I think being able to see the characters both in the 20s/30s and then later on in life was really effective. This is because when they were on stage together you can see the parallels between their situations and how often young love corresponds to the feelings when you are about to lose a loved one. Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, who share the credits for direction and choreography, create moments of gorgeous physicality. Ian William Galloway's elegant video design is full of swooshing starlings, and there's spacious music to define the mood.

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While they are very much in love, Bill's drinking and their inability to bear children begin to take their toll so that each seeks escape, though always rather ineffectually. All in all, this might be seen as a typically ordinary existence but is well drawn.

ABI MORGAN’S writing for the screen includes The Invisible Woman, the Margaret Thatcher film Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep, the flagship BBC TV drama The Hour and the BAFTA award-winning drama Sex Traffic (Channel 4). She has recently collaborated with Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender on the upcoming feature film Shame. She previously worked with Frantic Assembly on the much praised Tiny Dynamite, and her other previous writing for the stage includes The Night Is Darkest Before The Dawn (part of the Tricycle Theatre’s Great Game season), Fugee (NT New Connections), Tender (Hampstead) and Splendour (Paines Plough). On its own, this closely observed double story would be highly effective and very moving. However, Frantic Assembly takes it on to another plain with its iconoclastic and distinctive directing style. Directed by Frantic Assembly’s artistic directors Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, the production will tour the UK, beginning on 30 September 2011 at the Drum Theatre, Plymouth, with a three week London run at the Lyric Hammersmith from 11 January 2012 (Plymouth press night 3 October; London press night 12 January). In addition to previously announced tour dates, new dates have been added at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in February 2012. Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 February 2020.Lovesong by Abi Morgan is a textbook weepie which beats with such profound truth that you’re held rapt. In particular I enjoyed Billy's monologue about how he will live after Maggie passes. It was a heart wrenching truth that after we lose our loved ones we often lose a lot of love and care for ourselves. Even though he knows that he will give up on a lot of things he will never stop brushing his teeth, the one thing keeping him rooted in normality after such a heavy loss. Frantic Assembly’s touring production of ABI MORGAN’s new play LOVESONG comes to the Citizens Theatre this February. Renowned actress Siân Phillips will be joined by Sam Cox, who will play her husband, and Leanne Rowe and Edward Bennett, who will play the same couple as their younger selves.

SIÂN PHILLIPS is one of Britain’s most respected actors. Her recent stage work includes the role of Juliet in Juliet and her Romeo (Bristol Old Vic), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Broadway) and Calendar Girls (West End/tour). Her screen work includes her BAFTA-winning role in I, Claudius (BBC TV), as well as such seminal works as Goodbye Mr Chips, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Dune. She has also performed live with musician Rufus Wainwright at the Old Vic. White Girl, part of White (2008) – with Hettie Macdonald, won the TV Spielfilm Award at the Cologne Conference Bloomfield, Ruth (13 May 2015). "A Victorian Home in London's Stroud Green Gets a Modern Basement". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 17 April 2021 . Retrieved 17 April 2021. Morgan wrote the legal drama The Split, about the private and professional lives of divorce lawyers, first shown on BBC1 in April 2018. Miss Morgan has written a portrait of love that starts out as two simple stories following a couple Bill and Maggie, viewed at stages of their lives over forty-odd years apart.Having not dared to show any of her writing "to anyone for five years", her first professional stage credit was in 1998 with Skinned at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton. She has written plays for the Royal Exchange Studio Theatre Manchester, the Royal Lyceum Theatre, the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Court, London. [6] Her 2001 play Tender commissioned by Birmingham Rep Theatre and co-produced with the Hampstead Theatre gained her a nomination as "most promising playwright" at the 2002 Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards. A staunch opponent of Brexit, Morgan was one of nine leading playwrights to contribute to a series of online dramas in 2017 responding to the causes and consequences of the EU referendum result. Entitled Brexit Shorts, Morgan's monologue, The End, starred Penelope Wilton as a woman on the brink as she faces the consequences of the end of her 43-year-old marriage. [11] Non Fiction [ edit ] In the earliest sections of the play the couple, played by Edward Bennett and Leanne Rowe, are in their late twenties circa 1968. We follow their marriage through a period of transition and consolidation that lasts perhaps half a decade.