Following the success of Dr Stirlingshire’s Discovery, a promenade co-production with RZSS Edinburgh Zoo and Grid Iron, The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh is delighted to join again with the award-winning Lung Ha Theatre Company to present Castle Lennox, a world premiere by acclaimed playwright Linda McLean and directed by Maria Oller (We Are All Just Little Creatures, Lung Ha Theatre Company and Curious Seed in association with Lyra; Emma and Gill, Lung Ha Theatre Company and Catherine Wheels; Three Sisters, Thingummy Bob, The Silent Treatment, all Lung Ha Theatre Company).
With composition/musical direction by Michael John McCarthy (Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of), The Duchess (of Malfi), The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, Glory On Earth, A Number, The Weir, Bondagers (Lyceum Edinburgh); Nora: A Doll’s House (Young Vic/Citizens Theatre); I Can Go Anywhere, Crocodile Fever, Ulster American, How To Disappear, Grain in The Blood (Traverse Theatre); What Girls Are Made Of (Raw Material/Traverse Theatre); this heart-breaking and humorous play with music follows spirited teenager Annis, who finds herself in Lennox Castle, an isolated institution hidden away in the Scottish countryside. Faced with staff both cruel and kind, a brutal regime of medication and punishment; and the fellow patients who share her fate, her only source of comfort is a shy boy in a wheelchair, and her only desire is to go home.
But inside the darkness of the castle, Annis also discoverers a hidden world of make-believe, exploding with sound and colour and kept alive by the patients that populate the wards of the Castle, who believe, and know that, Annis is so much more than an ordinary girl.
Originally conceived during their work together on Thingummy Bob, Linda and Lung Ha Theatre Company reunite to tell this vibrant story of bravery, brutality, and the desire to belong. Performed by the celebrated Lung Ha Theatre Company ensemble, the cast will further include John Kielty, Fletcher Mathers, and Kirsty Eila McIntyre.
Speaking of the story, playwright Linda McLean said:
This is a big public story and an intimate tale. It’s the true story of how a rambling old castle became the home to hundreds of ‘physically and mentally disabled’ children, sent there by doctors and parents during a regime of segregation from the 1930s to the 1990s. It’s a story about separation, order and medication, punishment and reward, and the effects that institutions can have on staff and patients. But at its heart, it’s the story of a teenager who is longing for a home.
The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
1 May – 2 May 2020