 17th -21st June 2008
The original production was a smash hit transferring from Hampstead Theatre to the West End in 2005 and was described by one eminent critic as “reminiscent of the style of Alan Ayckbourn”. The play is extraordinarily, sometimes shockingly funny, as it explores emotions that most of us experience: the irrationality of love, and the inability to let go of our childhood memories and scars.
The play is set in a family bedroom in two time frames, the 1950s and present day. This is the bedroom where Tony and Sheila wait for Tony’s brother Reggie and his wife Elizabeth. They will all be attending the funeral of Louis, Tony’s father. Reggie, a successful lawyer, and his wife Elizabeth, a top jewellery designer, have designer teenage children too and are a high achieving family. Tony, by contrast, has always had to struggle and he and his wife Sheila have a daughter with Down’s Syndrome.
Around fifty years ago, the twenty-something Louis himself spent time in this bedroom – sometimes with his wife and at other times with his mistress. From the beginning of the play it is apparent that the 6-year old Tony was in this bedroom when he shouldn’t have been and saw, or heard, something he shouldn’t have.
What follows is a clever and seamless interweaving of the past and present, allowing the events of the past to illuminate the present and explain deeply held antagonisms in this divided family.
SIMON MENDES DA COSTA, the author, originally trained as a Civil Engineer before deciding to change careers once to become an actor completing two-year acting diploma at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1991. After a number of years working as an actor he ended up, almost by chance, attending a small writing group in Crouch End. The only way to stay part of the group was to write, so that’s what he did. Losing Louis is Simon’s second play. In 2006 he was nominated for Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards in London.
- View the Rehearsal Gallery [here]
- View the Production Gallery [here]
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