Primavera

Starring Susannah Harker and Anthony Howell

“Well, all in all, I hope this play has made you feel that in spite of the troublous times we live in, it is still pretty exciting to be English.”

A farce of sexual manners set at the end of empire.

“Charles Wood's Jingo eminently deserves its first revival since 1975 … it is rather as if Private Lives were being played out against a background of public tragedy” Michael Billington, The Guardian

“No contemporary writer has chronicled the experience of war so well” Benedict Nightingale, The Times

“In Tom Littler's production, for the Primavera company, every performance is first rate – Susannah Harker's ice-blond bitch; Peter Sandys-Clarke's absurd but touching George; Anthony Howell's sorrowing Ian, trapped by a crazy passion and a chaotic war. Best of all is Paul Mooney as the lecherous Percy” Rhoda Koenig, The Independent

“Tom Littler’s strongly acted revival” Benedict Nightingale, The Times

“Still remarkably resonant .. Susannah Harker is a joy as the divinely self-involved Gwendoline, toying with the men in her life as a cat would torment its kill, and Peter Sandys-Clarke is also engaging as the priggish and yet pathetic George. Paul Mooney is both amusing and tragic, as the smutty, blustering brigadier” The Stage

“Tom Littler's production, beautifully designed and lit by Will Reynolds, contains perfectly pitched performances” Michael Billington, The Guardian

Singapore 1942. Glamorous society girl Gwendoline finds herself at Raffles Hotel with her latest husband – a dependable journalist whom she married in a hurry after running up a large hotel bill in Bombay. But when she bumps into her former husband Ian, a dashing major with the royal engineers, she begins to wonder if she was a little hasty in divorcing him. Meanwhile, the brigadier Percy is also pursuing her now his wife has been evacuated on the first ship. And to top it all off, the Japanese are approaching and room service keeps running out of champagne...

Primavera returns to the Finborough Theatre to produce the first ever revival of Charles Wood’s witty farce set during the last days of the British Empire in Malaya among the splendour of the world-famous Raffles Hotel. Not performed since its 1975 Royal Shakespeare Company premiere, directed by Richard Eyre and starring Anna Massey and Bernard Lee, Jingo is a hilarious exploration of relationships and patriotism, set amid the opulence and sexual freedom of the privileged expatriate community in the days before the largest Allied surrender of the Second World War.

Charles Wood is one of the UK’s most successful post-war playwrights. He was born in 1932 and enlisted in the British Army in 1950. His plays include work for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre including Dingo (1966) which was banned by the Lord Chamberlain and produced as a private performance by the Royal Court Theatre; Cockade (Evening Standard Award 1963); Fill the Stage with Happy Hours (1966); H: Monologues at Front of Burning Cities (1970) Veterans (Evening Standard Award 1972); Red Star (Evening Standard Award nomination 1984); and Across From the Garden of Allah (1986). He has also done versions of plays by Pirandello for the National Theatre; Man Beast and Virtue (1989) and The Mountain Giants (1993). His work for television includes Tumbledown which starred Colin Firth as a disfigured Falklands veteran (BAFTA, Prix Italia (Rai), Tokyo Prize 1988). His screenplays include The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), and Iris (written with Richard Eyre, 2002)

Susannah Harker is best known for her role as Jane Bennett in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, and her BAFTA nominated performance as Mattie Storin in House of Cards. Her stage credits include Old Times for Sir Peter Hall, On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange and National Theatre), Masha in Three Sisters (Playhouse Theatre), Tartuffe (Almeida), Uncle Vanya (New York Lincoln Centre), and Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest for Nicholas Hytner. Her radio credits include Clarissa in The Voyage Out, Rose in Aspects of Love, Ottoline in Ottoline and Bertie, and Lady Strathmore in The Unhappy Countess (all BBC Radio 4). Her television credits include Angela in Ultraviolet, Perfect Parents, and Waking the Dead. Her film credits include Intimacy, Offending Angels, The Calling, and Marie-Therese Walther in Surviving Picasso.

Anthony Howell is best known for his role as Paul Milner in six series of Foyle's War, and television appearances in Hawking, The Other Boleyn Girl and Wives and Daughters. His stage credits include leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company, And Then There Were None (West End), and The French Lieutenant's Woman (National Tour).