I’m excited to direct this incredible play that is full of McDonagh’s trademark dark, violent and hilarious dialogue. But also explodes the ever-relevant theme of revenge. I can’t wait to see how the audiences of Liverpool react to it at the iconic theatre space of the Everyman.” It will be directed by Chris Sonnex, Artistic Director of Cardboard Citizens (an Associate Company at the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse):

sees the strengthening of creative relationships with the theatres’ Associate Companies, as a springboard for fresh voices and new diverse perspectives, ensuring Liverpool’s cultural scene remains vibrant and dynamic. As well as collaborating on productions with Homotopia and Cardboard Citizens, there will be a major co-production and commission with Talawa Theatre Company to be announced in February 2024. The theatres continue to work with Graeae on their artist development programme Beyond, will support a new Liverpool-based Associate role, and welcome Graeae’s Crips with Chips: A Fork in the Road, a showcase of short plays by Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent writers written in response to a predetermined theme (24 February). Comedy nights include Babatunde Aleshe: Babahood(24 February), Jon Courtenay: Bigger(5 April), Griff Rhys Jones: The Cat’s Pyjamas (30 April), Tom Davis: Underdog(4 May), Rosie Holt: That’s Politainment (25 May) and Danny Davies (11 September). Plus there’s poetry from Hollie McNish: The Lobster Tour (27 June). Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse today announce a 2024 season which boasts world premieres, classic plays and projects with their Associate Companies, with the development of new talent at the fore. It’s a year that sees the Everyman celebrate sixty years since it’s foundation and ten years since the Stirling Prize winning new building opened. Munrow challenges the assumption that dementia is worse for those close to the patient than the sufferer themselves. "If someone broke their leg, they would be in pain," Simon reasons. "If someone's mind breaks, wouldn't you think they're in pain as well?" The short, staccato scenes seem to echo the distortions and disorientation of the disease: conversations are generally held at cross-purposes, or directly contradict each other, reminding us that collective truth is rarely more than an aggregate of fallible reminiscences. As well as its own productions and collaborations, ensuring the best in UK theatre and entertainment comes to the city, the theatres also announce a visiting programme including the return of their co-production with Nottingham Playhouse and UK Productions of The Kite Runner (23 to 27 April), which since last seen in Liverpool has been on Broadway.The play explores how AI and automation are changing the world of work and at the heart of the play we have a “machine” with the power to choose the scenes played by our three actors. It creates a sense of ‘dare’ for the performers and the audience and I’m really excited to see it play out on stage.” Set in Liverpool as the AIDS epidemic threatens a generation, Tell Me How It Ends is about two queer lives intertwining as they each learn to love living – finding the joy in being bound together during a time of growing uncertainty. Written by Tasha Dowd, a graduate of the Young Everyman Playhouse Writers programme, the play is the winner of the 2023 Homotopia Writers’ Award. Tasha Dowd said: Sam Millard plays the young runaway Ben. His performance grew on me as he seemed to develop confidence, revealing the vulnerability behind this sullen teenager, struggling with his conscience. Kathryn Worth plays the police officer with strength and compassion and supports as the doctor and Jeryl Burgess is salt-of-the-earth Rose and supports in other roles. Chris Bearne gives a moving performance as widower Terry, who has worked alone in the laundry for nearly three decades and now needs help and company. Bearne gives Terry an innate kindness and good nature which makes his 'tell it as it is' rough honesty endearing.

I have a friend, Joe Abel, who I knew worked in a mental-health setting but I’d never really discussed it any real depth with him. When I started working on BlueI was primarily looking at it from the viewpoint of a character who has been placed in a mental-health unit but wanted to know what it was like to work in one as well. As soon as I spoke to him about his work, a whole complex world was opened up to me that I knew nothing about. I found it fascinating, not least because it became clear to me that Joe was doing a job that I didn’t have the ability, or the fortitude, to do. It didn’t hurt that he’s a very insightful and articulate human as well. So, he was my main source of help for the play and then there was the usual watching of documentaries and reading of books. Someone Stares at a Dog for a Few Minutes, and Has a Think About It All by Simon Longman (The Long Listen) However, it’s important to stress that Blueis a play and not a documentary, it doesn’t need to be as there are loads of brilliant documentaries about the state of mental health services in the UK. In BlueI was trying to get closer to the feeling, the emotive content of what modern mental-health care can feel like, rather than a factual recounting of a specific mental-health unit. Work experience notwithstanding, this is not an autobiographical piece and the young Ben of the story who runs away to Liverpool from London to escape we-know-not-what, is not Ward Munrow who went from London to Liverpool to study drama at John Moore's University. He remained in the area, and it was The Liverpool Everyman's young writers programme, from which he graduated last year, that fostered the development of this, his first full length play. The play isn't perfect: Simon's soliloquy on the movement of electrons feels like a piece of random physics imparted by the playwright, rather than an observation that springs directly from character. But Katie Scott's beguiling design has an underwater feel; and Lorne Campbell's jittery production puts you permanently on edge. Held introduces a talent worth holding on to.The Playhouse season also includes Unfortunate, a musical telling the untold story of Ursula the Sea Witch (5 to 9 March); Pilot Theatre return with a contemporary version of Orpheus in The Song for Ella Grey (13 to 16 March); Curve Theatre’s My Beautiful Laundrette (26 to 30 March), directed by Nicole Behan from Liverpool’s Paperwork Theatre; imitating the dog create a new Frankenstein (17 to 20 April); Tim Rice: I Know Him So Well, My Life in Musicals (2 May); Showstopper: The Improvised Musical (9 to 11 May); and Drop the Dead Donkey the Reawakening (14 to 18 May); You have only to attend one of the hundreds of lecture-recitals on early woodwind instruments which Munrow gives up and down the country, and abroad, every year to realise how much his playing has caused such instruments to be taken seriously – to be thought of not merely as musical fossils, but as a range of sonorities that hold unlimited delights for the listener, and which today’s composers can find an invaluable stimulus. If you can’t get to one of his lecture recitals, then his exciting new demonstration disc, The Medieval Sound on the Oryx label, will serve the purpose: though seeing him play these colourful instruments inevitably adds further dimension. Medieval music has never for him been a dead art exhumed by scholars. It is alive and well and flourishing world over. At the heart of the Everyman season are three homegrown productions, two of which come from writers supported through the theatres’ playwright programmes. For younger children, there’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea (12 to 17 February), Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book (9 to 13 April) and Tom Fletcher’s There’s A Monster in Your Show (28 May to 1 June).