The incomparable Northern Broadsides return to Liverpool with an adaptation of Githa Sowerby’s powerful domestic drama Rutherford & Son. Under the direction of the esteemed Jonathan Miller, and featuring Barrie Rutter in the lead role, this critically acclaimed production comes to the Playhouse from Tuesday 21st to Saturday 25th May.
After the runaway success of last year’s A Government Inspector, the Liverpool Playhouse plays host to Northern Broadsides once more, this time with Rutherford & Son. This powerful drama written and set in the North of England, 1912, is an unflinching portrayal of an industrial Edwardian family on the brink of collapse.
John Rutherford is a tyrannical patriarch, blind to the hopes and feelings of his family. The success of the family-owned glassworks, Rutherford and Son, takes precedence over everything … even happiness.
Ranked by the National Theatre as one of the Top One Hundred Plays of the 20th Century, there are few dramas as deeply human, uncompromising and immediately rewarding as this. Northern Broadsides, directed for the first time by the renowned director Jonathan Miller, bring its trademark gritty, no nonsense performance style to this astonishing play that sees Artistic Director Barrie Rutter taking the role of the imperious John Rutherford.
Jonathan Miller said, “As soon as I read Rutherford & Son I was attracted to its straight forward dramatic simplicity and the fact that it seemed unexpectedly relevant to the current difficulties that businesses of this sort are undergoing. I suspect that the audience will be drawn to the play by the fact that it represents circumstances with which they can undeniably sympathise with.”
Alongside Barrie Rutter, the cast will also feature a host of actors who have been at the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse in recent years. Wendi Peters (Coronation Street, I.T.V.) returns after Northern Broadsides’ 2010 production of The Game; Nicholas Shaw (Land Girls, B.B.C.), who was in 2010’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore and Everyman Anthology; and Andrew Grose, a Broadsides stalwart most recently seen in A Government Inspector. Other cast includes Kate Anthony (Coronation Street, I.T.V.), Sara Poyzer (Eastenders, BBC), Catherine Kinsella (We Are Three Sisters, Northern Broadsides) and Richard Standing (Swallows & Amazons, Bristol Old Vic).
Tickets for Rutherford & Son are available from the Playhouse Theatre Box office, by telephone on 0151 7094776 or online at www.everymanplayhouse.com. Tickets are priced from £10 to £23.