PRESS RELEASE – Sunday 1 July 2018

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A NATIONAL THEATRE AND YOUNG VIC CO-PRODUCTION WITH GOOD CHANCE THEATRE

THE JUNGLE by Joe Murphy & Joe Robertson directed by Stephen Daldry & Justin Martin

THE JUNGLE WINS SOUTH BANK SKY ARTS AWARD

The Jungle by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson has won the South Bank Sky Arts Award in the 2018 Theatre category. The production is set in Europe’s largest unofficial refugee camp, the Calais Jungle, which in 2015, became a temporary home for more than 10,000 people. A National Theatre and Young Vic co-production with Good Chance Theatre, The Jungle is directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin. It is currently in previews at the Playhouse Theatre in London’s West End, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Tom Kirdahy and Hunter Arnold, following a sell-out run at the Young Vic in December 2017.

Melvyn Bragg presented the annual Awards at The Savoy Hotel in London, commending the greatest contributors to all aspects of the arts over the past 12 months. The South Bank Sky Arts Awards remains the only awards ceremony in the world to represent the entire spectrum of the arts, with categories for TV Drama, Classical Music, Theatre, Comedy, Dance, Film, Visual Art, Pop, Literature and Opera.

In order to transfer the production to the West End, the team behind The Jungle have completely reconfigured the Playhouse Theatre, where the traditional proscenium arch venue has undergone an unprecedented transformation to house Miriam Buether’s critically-acclaimed set design as seen at the Young Vic. Audiences are invited to sit at the benches and tables of the Afghan café in the Calais camp. The Playhouse Theatre also offers the new experience of watching from the Dress Circle, which has been renamed “Cliffs of Dover”, with views over the dramatically transformed performance space below, enhanced by accompanying video screens, relaying close-up ‘live news broadcast’ style footage of some of the action.

The in-the-round transformation reduces the capacity of the theatre to under 450 seats. Top price tickets are directly enabling 40% of the house to be priced at £25 and under, and a proportion of tickets are being offered to refugees and targeted groups in order to maximise diversity and accessibility. Bucket collections and donation stations are available at every single performance of the show to help fundraise for official charity partners, Help Refugees.

This is the place where people suffered and dreamed. Meet the hopeful, resilient residents of the Jungle – just across the Channel, right on our doorstep. The Jungle tells stories of

loss, fear, community and hope, of the Calais camp’s creation - and of its eventual destruction. Join the residents over freshly baked naan and sweet milky chai at the Afghan Café, and experience the intense, moving and uplifting encounters between refugees from many different countries and the volunteers who arrived from the UK.

Official charity partner, Help Refugees, which was established alongside Good Chance Theatre in the Calais Jungle in 2015 and is now the leading UK NGO in a new movement of international humanitarian aid, is supported by the production.

The company is made up of actors from around the world; cast members are from Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, Eritrea, England, Zimbabwe, Syria, Armenia, Congo, Wales, Scotland, The Gambia, Morocco, Lebanon and Germany.

-ENDS-

For further information please contact Maisie Lawrence / Ben Chamberlain The Corner Shop PR on 020 7831 7657

LISTINGS

Sonia Friedman Productions and Tom Kirdahy, Hunter Arnold in association with Elizabeth Dewberry & Ali Ahmet Kocabiyik, Gary & Marcia Nelson, Ushkowitzlatimer Productions, Paula Marie Black, Tulchin Bartner Productions, Michael DeSantis, 1001 Nights Productions, Rupert Gavin, Brenda Leff, Stephanie P. McClelland, Richard Winkler, Jane Cee & Glenn Redbord Present A National Theatre and Young Vic co-production with Good Chance Theatre THE JUNGLE by Joe Murphy & Joe Robertson Directed by Stephen Daldry & Justin Martin Set Miriam Buether Costumes Catherine Kodicek Lighting Jon Clark Sound Paul ArdittiMusical Direction / Composition John Pfumojena Video Duncan McLean and Tristan Shepard Casting Julia Horan CDG Executive Producer David Lan

The Playhouse Theatre Northumberland Ave, London WC2N 5DE

Final performance: Saturday 3 November Opening Night: Thursday 5 July

Monday to Saturday evenings, 7.30pm Thursday & Saturday matinees, 2.30pm

Box office: 0844 871 7631 Calls cost 7p per minute, plus your phone company's access charge Groups Bookings: 020 7206 1174 Access Bookings: 0800 912 6971 www.thejungleplay.co.uk Prices from £15

Twitter: @TheJungleLDN Facebook: @TheJungleLDN Instagram: @TheJungleLDN #TheJungleWestEnd

NOTES TO EDITORS

About The South Bank Sky Arts Awards The South Bank Sky Arts Awards are the only awards ceremony in the world to represent the entire spectrum of the British Arts. Previous winners across the various categories include Doctor Foster for TV Drama, Skyfall for Film, and Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies for Literature. Previous winners of the Outstanding Achievement Award include Harold Pinter, Judi Dench, JK Rowling, Eddie Izzard and last year Andrew Lloyd Webber. About Sky Arts

Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated channel for the arts. It offers something for everyone, whatever their passion, with entertaining programmes showcasing the best of classical and popular music, theatre, opera, dance and the visual arts, as well as original drama and comedy. Sky Arts is broadcast 24 hours a day and has over 1,000 hours available on catch-up TV, including flagship programmes such as Portrait Artist of The Year, Landscape Artist of the Year and The South Bank Show.

The channel is committed to supporting the arts by investing in the best talent, both on and off screen, as well as through exclusive partnerships with major UK and European cultural institutions, including National Theatre Live, Tate and The British Library.

Sky is Europe's leading entertainment company, serving 23 million customers across seven countries - UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. The company had annual reported revenues of £12.9 billion in 2016/17, and is Europe’s leading investor in television content with an annual programming spend of around £7 billion. Sky has over 31,000 employees and is listed as one of The Times Top 50 employers for women, as well as being recognised in the Stonewall list of Top 50 LGBT-inclusive employers. Sky is listed on the London Stock Exchange (SKY).

Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy are the joint-artistic directors of the Evening Standard Editor’s Award-winning Good Chance Theatre which was originally based in the Jungle in Calais and then in the north of Paris next to the refugee welcome centre in spring 2017 and spring 2018.

Through theatre and art, Good Chance creates new kinds of communities, empowering artists from across the world and connecting people, stories and cultures. Founded by British playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, Good Chance established its first temporary theatre of hope, an 11m geodesic dome, in the heart of the refugee and migrant camp in Calais in September 2015, promoting freedom of expression, creativity and dignity for everyone. It has since travelled to London’s Southbank for a nine-day festival led by refugees in July 2016, and opened its doors to refugees, artists and local Parisians in the French capital for eight weeks in spring 2017 in partnership with Collectif MU and Theatre de la Ville and for ten weeks in spring 2018 in collaboration with humanitarian NGO Emmaüs Solidarité. At the invitation of the Mayor of Paris, the Good Chance dome will return to the French capital in summer and autumn 2018. Alongside the dome theatres, the company creates groundbreaking Good Chance Productions and works with a collective of artists from across the world through the Good Chance Ensemble, most recently supporting the creation of the album ‘Sounds of Refuge’ by John Falsetto and Mohamed Sarrar, recorded at Abbey Road Studios.

Good Chance is an Associate Company of the Young Vic Theatre and recipient of the Evening Standard Editor’s Award (2016), an Empty Space Peter Brook Award (2017) and the Genesis Award (2018).

Good Chance is supported by the Pureland Foundation and the KT Wong Foundation.

Good Chance Trustees: Stephen Daldry (Chair), Sonia Friedman, David Lan, Natalia Kaliada.

goodchance.org.uk

Stephen Daldry most recently directed The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez, a play in two parts, to critical acclaim and a sell-out run at the Young Vic Theatre. It will transfer to the Noel Coward Theatre this autumn. Stephen started his career at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre and directed extensively in Britain’s regional theatres. In London he was Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre where he headed the £26 million redevelopment. He has also directed at the National Theatre, the Public Theatre in New York and transferred many productions both to Broadway and the West End. His awardwinning 1992 National Theatre production of An Inspector Calls recently completed a 16 week run in the West End following a successful UK tour. In September 2018 it will again tour the UK before embarking on a tour of the US in spring 2019. Billy Elliot the Musical opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre in 2005 where it ran for 11 years. It has also played on Broadway, in Holland, Seoul, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo and across the US. In 2009, the production won ten Tony awards, including Best Musical, more than any other British show in Broadway history. It recently completed an 18 month tour of the UK and Ireland, finishing its highly successful run in Hamburg. Stephen directed The Audience and Skylight to critical acclaim both in London and on Broadway with Skylight winning a Tony award for Best Revival. Stephen’s first four films Billy Elliot, The Hours, The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close together received 19 Academy Award® nominations and two wins. His film, Trash, set in the favellas of Rio de Janeiro, was nominated for Best Film Not In The English Language at the 2015 BAFTAs. Stephen has previously directed for BBC Radio and Television. He is Executive Producer and Director on the highly acclaimed Netflix series The Crown by Peter Morgan, which won Best Drama Series at the Golden Globes. Stephen was Creative Executive Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Stephen is Co-Director of Pier 55 in New York and also on the Board of The Perelman Arts Center at the World Trade Center, Ground Zero, New York.

Justin Martin previously directed Last Chance with Good Chance Theatre at the Young Vic in 2016. Theatre includes: Low Level Panic (Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney; Galway Theatre Festival and Irish National Tour), Street (Mick Laly Theatre), The Black Balloon (in development), Harvey and Frieda (Arcola Theatre), Far Away and Skintight (fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne), The Kitchen (HMS Theatre, Vic), Echarcissus (Natya Mandala Theatre) and Billie (The Studio, Sydney Opera House and La Mama). As Associate Director: Inheritance (Young Vic/Scott Rudin - workshop), Skylight (West End, Broadway), The Audience (West End, Broadway), Let The Right One In (National Theatre Of Scotland, The Royal Court, Apollo Theatre, St Anne's Warehouse), Billy Elliot (New York, Toronto, Brazil, Chicago, North America Tour, Korea and Australia) and The Give and Take (Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company). Television credits includes: The Crown (Series 1 and 2)

Miriam Buether trained in costume design at Akademie für Kostüm Design in Hamburg and in theatre design at Central Saint Martin’s, London. Theatre and Dance includes: Three Tall Women, A Doll’s House 2 (Broadway); Escaped Alone (Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York); Machinal, Albion, Boy, Game, When the Rain Stops Falling, Judgement Day (Almeida Theatre); The Jungle, The Trial, Measure for Measure, Public Enemy, Wild Swans, The Government Inspector, In the Red

and Brown Water, The Good Soul of Szechuan, Generations (Young Vic); Get Santa!, Sucker Punch, Cock, In the Republic of Happiness, My Child (Royal Court Theatre) The Children, Escaped Alone, Love and Information (RCT and New York); Sunny Afternoon, Chariots of Fire (Hampstead Theatre and Westend); Wild (Hampstead Theatre); Bend it Like Beckham (West End); The Father (Theatre Royal Bath);The Effect, Earthquakes in London (National Theatre); Decade (Headlong); King Lear (New York); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End); Everybody Loves a Winner (Manchester International Festival); The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Edinburgh International Festival / Royal Court); Red Demon, The Bee (Young Vic / Japan); Trade (RSC / Soho Theatre); Guantanamo: “Honor Bound to Defend Freedom” (Tricycle Theatre / West End / New York / San Francisco), Tenterhooks (Canadian National Ballet); Awakenings (Ballet Rambert), Frame of View (Cedar Lake, New York). Opera includes: La Fanciulla Del West (ENO and Santa Fe Opera); Turandot, Wozzeck (ENO); Suor Angelica (Royal Opera House); Anna Nicole (Royal Opera House and New York); Carmen (Salzburg Festival); The Death of Klinghoffer (Edinburgh Festival / Scottish Opera).

Miriam was the overall winner of The Linbury Prize for Stage Design in 1999 and received the Evening Standard Theatre Award in 2010 for Best Design for Earthquakes in London and Sucker Punch.

National Theatre

At the National Theatre, we make world-class theatre that is entertaining, challenging and inspiring, and we make it for everyone. In 2016-2017, the NT staged 26 productions and gave 2,585 performances at our home on the South Bank. The NT’s award-winning programme had a UK paying audience of 1.8 million, 400,000 of which were NT Live audiences.

The work the National Theatre produces appeals to the widest possible audiences with new plays, musicals, re-imagined classics and new work for young audiences. The NT’s work is seen in the West End, on tour throughout the UK and internationally, and in collaborations and co-productions with partners across the country. Through NT Live, we broadcast some of the best of British theatre to over 2,000 venues in 60 countries around the world.

Our extensive Learning programme offers talks, events and workshops for people of all ages, and reaches nationwide through programmes such as Connections, our annual festival of new plays for schools and youth theatres. In 2016-2017 there were 196,826 participations through the NT Learning events programme. Over 3,000 schools have signed up to the free streaming service, On Demand In Schools, since its launch in September 2015.

The Young Vic, one of the UK’s leading theatres, produces new plays, classics, forgotten works, musicals and opera. It co-produces and tours widely in the UK and internationally while keeping deep roots in its neighbourhood. It frequently transfers shows to London’s West End and invites local people to take part at its home in Waterloo. In 2016 the Young Vic became London’s first Theatre of Sanctuary. Recent productions include Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size, Simon Stone’s new version of Lorca’s Yerma which opened at The Park Avenue Armory in New York City in March with Billie Piper reprising her multi award-wining performance, and Ivo Van Hove’s production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge (West End, Broadway, Paris), as well as Horizons, a season exploring the lives of refugees. www.youngvic.org

Help Refugees is the leading UK NGO in a new movement of humanitarian aid. Set up by a group of friends, in just two and a half years they have grown from a social media campaign into a charity that’s helped over 722,500 people. Responding rapidly and flexibly to the genuine needs of refugees, they now support over 80 different projects across Europe and the Middle East. They fund emergency medical care, women and children’s services, Search and Rescue, informal education and food. Acting where governmental and other non-governmental bodies are unable to, they are working to fill the huge and terrifying gaps in services for those displaced by war and persecution in Europe and beyond. With no bureaucracy and minimal overheads, every pound they raise can be traced to its tangible impact on the ground.