DAVID THAME
DAVID THAME
Wroughter of Plays, Monger of Scripts
SPY PLAYS
Above The Stag Theatre, London, 26 February to 29 March 2020
Kompromat makes a return to the stage, this time joined by London/Budapest.
"Intelligent and provocative plays …producing reverberations in the mind that last for days…. an examination of character, and the corrupting impact of loneliness that is heart-breaking."
★★★★ Review Hub
"Thame is a glorious storyteller …This is a delicious theatrical treat, erotic, serious, tidy, clever and sophisticated."
★★★★★ Boyz
"[A] “stylish double bill …a complex and compelling pair of plays, in which sexuality, blackmail and menace make very unsettling bed-fellows… tightly constructed”
★★★ The Stage
"tension palpitating throughout"
★★★★ QX Magazine
"Both [plays] have a cat and mouse tension between killer and victim as an erotic fantasy turns into something more sinister. With a script that never lets you be entirely sure where it is going, directors Peter Darney and Julie Addy, helped by Jack Wills’s lighting, mix menace with a study of gay vulnerability."
"Intrigue. Attraction. Mystery. Lust. Sex. Murder."
★★★★★ The Gay UK
The two were written to be performed together, so re-uniting them is a special pleasure. You can check it out here
London/Budapest dramatises the last Sunday afternoon in the life of Adam de Hegedus who, under the pen name Rodney Garland, wrote the UK's first gay bestseller, The Heart in Exile. You can read a little of the real history here.
Cast & Creatives
Director – Peter Darney
Associate Director – Julie Addy
Lighting Designer – Jack Wills
Sound Designer – Nicola Chang
Associate Sound Designer - Sam Glossop
Costume Design for London/Budapest – Barbara Williams
Original Design for Kompromat - Fionnula Blosson
Choreography - Belle de Beauvoir
Stage Managers – Lyndsey Bicker & James Prendergast
The cast includes GUY WARREN THOMAS and MAX RINEHART, both of whom appeared in the original production of Kompromat, and SÉAN BROWNE.
The splendid poison bottle image is by Jon Bradfield.
MOTHER/DAUGHTER
Late 2020/Early 2021
The intimate and supportive (or unsupportive) mother/daughter relationship is, on the face of it, the least public space imaginable.
Yet so often this is the zone in which the outside world turns into dramatic personal conflict.
Coming to a stage near you in late 2020, two new plays on the tender, and sometimes less tender, mother/daughter dynamic.
More on this to follow...
KOMPROMAT, 23 January to 3 February 2019
The last days of a London spy: inspired by (but not based on: this is not history) the notorious and alarming case of Gareth Williams, found dead zipped into a sports bag in his Pimlico flat in 2010, Kompromat opened at London's VAULTFestival in January 2019, with the run extended by another week at the Festival's invitiation.
Directed by Peter Darney, performed beautifully by Max Rinehart and Guy Warren-Thomas, lighting by Sherry Coenen, sound by Nicola Chang, design by Fionnula Blossom, choreography by Tasmine Airey, and the staunchest possible stage manager, the wonderful Lyndsey Bicker. All of them beyond magnificent, Peter plurally so, and all possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of Capital & Centric plc, and the mentoring of Nic Connaughton.
"A layered unsensational meditation on the imposing nature of loneliness, sex and power" Lyn Gardner, Stagedoorapp
"David Thame's Kompromat is a clever compression: a single-act psychological thriller... a doubly chilling experience."
Susannah Clapp, The Observer
"Death, deceit, denial and desire are examined in glorious detail" Boyz ★★★★
“Oozes with sexual tension” Rev Stan ★★★★★
“Compelling” West End Wilma ★★★★
"Spellbinding...The writing is evocative, the imagery precise and the effect utterly chilling." QueerGuru ★★★★★
“That special kind of lyricism that truly transports” Fringe Guru ★★★★
“Completely gripped… Go See!” Jack the Lad ★★★★
"A very smart script...very clever writing...Peter Darney has another hit on his hands." ★★★★ ReviewsHub
“The best production to see this week” Theatre Reviews ★★★★
CHANGING ROOM
August 2017 & April 2019
Arundel Festival's 2017 Theatre Trail - produced by Drip Action Theatre - chose my play Changing Room for their August shows: eight performances, daily, one of a select few scattered around the town during a sunny week of fun. Changing Room was a monologue full of frantic activity, much of it involving getting dressed and undressed constantly for 30 minutes, performed with enormous elan by William Croome, under the fantastic direction of Bill Brennan. Changing Room shows how one young dad finds some room to change as he juggles footie, food and family and it won the Joy Goun Award 2017, for which I'm very grateful. That involved actual money, which was brilliant.
In April 2019 Changing Room came back for an encore, in the form of a rehearsed reading in Soho staged and directed by the incredibly capable Juliette Rose. We were lucky to have Alex Austin who made a funny, tender and convincingly laddish Dan. He was awesome!
LONDON/BUDAPEST
Arcola PLAYWROUGHT #5 June-July 2017
I was lucky enough to be selected as one of Arcola's stable of Playwrought writers in summer 2017 with two plays grouped under the title London/Budapest. Some intensive workshopping, dramaturgical support and a lot of good will by the Arcola team under Nick Connaughton made this a fantastic experience. The formal end of the process was a public reading: mine got a fantastic showing from Gerard McDermott, RSC players Piero Niell-Mee and Simon Scardifield and name-to-watch Callum McGowan, directed by also-name-to-watch Richard Speir. Both plays are now making their way towards production - fingers crossed.
Lord Berners
DANCING
3MT Manchester, 16-19 March 2017
Dancing (reviewed here) was produced at Manchester's very bijou, very lovely Three Minute Theatre (3MT), Oldham Street, just off Piccadilly Gardens in March 2017.
Dancing tells the funny-sad story of a disasterous 36 hours in the life of Brian, ineffective landlord and redundant drag queen. Bradley Kerr, Stephen Costello and Phil Clift were wonderful as, respectively, Brian, his lodger Harry (a dancer) and his long-term house guest and scally nuisance Triga.
The late Lord Berners, pictured here looking typically dapper, provided the music - do listen to his Valses Bourgeoises - whilst Gina Frost directed and John Topliff produced. Enormously good fun to work with all of them.
CONTACT
Get in touch with me for more information about my work and what's coming up.