The Enemy (NTS)

 The National Theatre of Scotland presents 

The Enemy 

by Kieran Hurley after Henrik Ibsen’s ‘An Enemy of the People’ 

Directed by Finn den Hertog, video design Lewis den Hertog, sound design Matt Padden, original set design Rosanna Vize, composer Kathryn Joseph, lighting designer Katharine Williams, set and costume designer Jen McGinley, co-movement directors Vicki Manderson and Robbie Gordon, assistant director Leonie Rae Gasson

 

Cast: Hannah Donaldson, Billy Mack, Neil McKinven, Taqi Nazeer, Gabriel Quigley and Eléna Redmond 

  

Touring to Greenock, Dundee, Edinburgh, Inverness and Perth in October and November 2021 

Opening performance at Dundee Rep on Wednesday 13 October 2021 

Henrik Ibsen’s iconic play An Enemy of the People is given a contemporary Scottish re-imagining in

this brand-new stage adaptation from the award-winning team of playwright Kieran Hurley and director Finn den Hertog.  

In a once-proud Scottish industrial town, a massive redevelopment project promises to bring money, jobs, and new prospects to its forgotten population. However, when Kirsten Stockmann discovers a dangerous secret, she knows she must bring the truth to light - no matter the cost. 

This urgent, provocative new production feels increasingly relevant in 2021. Set during a public health crisis, The Enemy scrutinises corruption and power amidst a changing media landscape and explores what it means to hold power to account in a post-truth political world.  

Members of the original cast are reunited following the production’s delayed premiere. In this radical reworking of the classic drama the roles of Dr Stockman and his brother are played by women. The Stockmann sisters are played by Hannah Donaldson and Gabriel Quigley and are joined by a leading Scottish ensemble of actors: Billy Mack, Neil McKinven, Taqi Nazeer and Eléna Redmond.  

 

Featuring a brooding original soundtrack from award-winning composer Kathryn Joseph and startling live video, The Enemy is a uniquely contemporary and Scottish take on Ibsen’s timeless work. This tour marks the first time that a version of Ibsen’s classic play has been staged in Scotland for over forty years. 

National Theatre of Scotland is delighted to be returning to Scotland’s live stages in autumn 2021, with the Company’s first national tour since venues were closed due to COVID-19 in 2020. The production will now tour to venues across Scotland in October and November 2021 including the Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock, Dundee Rep Theatre, King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness and Perth Theatre.  The production was in rehearsal when the pandemic halted its original tour in Spring 2020.

Jackie Wylie, Artistic Director of National Theatre of Scotland says:

“We are more than thrilled to be returning to live audiences and communities across Scotland this autumn with an exciting new adaption of Ibsen’s The Enemy, adapted by the brilliant theatre-making team of writer Kieran Hurley and director Finn den Hertog. It seems entirely fitting that our first post lockdown tour is the show that was in rehearsal when COVID-19 closed Scottish theatres for over 18 months. I am both joyful and relieved that the Company is back on the road taking theatre across Scotland, connecting with theatres and audiences again and sharing the unique experience of live performance that we have missed for so long.”

Kieran Hurley says:

“It is a real joy to be able to bring The Enemy to audiences at last, after this long hiatus. When we went into lockdown in March last year we were literally on the verge of going into rehearsals, and things have been so uncertain that there was never a guarantee we'd be back in this place. So it feels like a triumph of everyone's determination and hard work to even be here at all, bringing a new production to live audiences which is what it's all about. What's really fascinating to me though is how the pandemic has at times mirrored the world of the play, casting its conversation about a society in the grip of a public health crisis in a whole new light. What we thought was an adaption focused on quite current themes of fake news, distrust of experts, and the treacherous whirlwind of public opinion in an age of social media has now taken on a whole new contemporary relevance that we could never have predicted in a million years. It's been genuinely surreal, and testament I suppose to the enduring relevance of Ibsen's original. It's been a long uncertain wait but maybe, in all of this, the play has somehow found its moment.”

Kieran Hurley is an award-winning writer, performer, and theatre maker based in Glasgow. His recent work has included the stage hits Mouthpiece, Square Go, and Heads Up, as well as the Scottish BAFTA-winning film Beats, based on his acclaimed stage play of the same name. His previous project with the National Theatre of Scotland, Rantin, was presented in collaboration with The Arches, and toured Scotland in 2014.  

Finn den Hertog is an award-winning director and actor who has worked with theatre companies across the UK including The Traverse, The Young Vic and The National Theatre. Previous work with National Theatre of Scotland includes The Auteurs Project in 2014, as well as appearing in Abi Morgan’s play 27 in 2012. In 2018 he directed the award-winning production of Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair’s play Square Go for Francesca Moody Productions. 

Join the conversation: #TheEnemy 

Touring to Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock (Preview 9 October), Dundee Rep (Preview 12 October & 13 -16 October); Kings Theatre, Edinburgh (20 - 23 October); Eden Court, Inverness (27 - 30 October); Perth Theatre (3 - 6 November) 

Full tour dates, booking info and social distancing guidance: nationaltheatrescotland.com

Listing Information

Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock

Sat 9 Oct, 7.30pm (Preview)

Tickets: £8 - £10

www.beaconartscentre.co.uk

Dundee Rep

Tue 12 (Preview) – Sat 16 Oct, 7.30pm. Sat 16 Oct, 2.30pm

Tickets: £10 - £25

www.dundeerep.co.uk

Access: 15 Oct 7.30pm - BSL,16 Oct, 2.30pm - AD, CAP

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

Wed 20 – Sat 23 Oct, 7.30pm. Sat 23 Oct, 2.30pm

Tickets: £15 - £33.50

www.capitaltheatres.com

Access: 21 Oct, 7.30pm – CAP, 23 Oct, 2.30pm - AD, BSL

Eden Court, Inverness

Wed 27 – Sat 30 Oct, 7.30pm

Tickets: £10 - £25

www.eden-court.co.uk

Access: 29 Oct, 7.30pm – CAP, 30 Oct, 7.30pm - AD, BSL

Perth Theatre

Wed 3 – Sat 6 Nov, 7.30pm. Sat 6 Nov, 2.30pm

Tickets: £11 - £27

www.horsecross.co.uk

Access: 5 Nov, 7.30pm - AD, CAP, 6 Nov, 2.30pm – BSL

Age Guidance, 16+

Theatre for a Fiver - £5 ticket deals and discount codes for 16 - 26 year olds. Full info here

Updated: Heads up on Tour, 2017. Kieran Hurley @ across the UK

Heads Up

Kieran Hurley with Show And Tell

credit: Jassy Earl

A city. Just like this. Right now. A woman staggers home after a two-day bender. A priest who doesn’t believe in God stares blankly at the endless disasters on the TV news. A finance worker tears down a Keep Calm And Carry On sign outside a Café Nero. In just one moment, all their worlds will end.

With an original innovative score by Michael John McCarthy, multi award-winner Kieran Hurley (Beats, Chalk Farm, Hitch) weaves a picture of a familiar city at its moment of destruction, asking what would we do if we found ourselves at the end of our world as we know it.

Tron Theatre

63 Trongate, Glasgow, G1 5HB

Wednesday 22 February 2017 (as part of TAKE ME SOMEWHERE, a new citywide festival of contemporary performance that builds on the legacy of The Arches arts programme)

7.45pm | £14 (£10)

Tickets: 0141 552 4267 | www.tron.co.uk

Traverse Theatre (Traverse 2)

10 Cambridge Street, Edinburgh, EH1 2ED

Thursday 23 – Saturday 25 February 2017

Post show discussion: Thursday 23 Feb 2017

8pm | £16.50 (£13.50/£8.50)

Tickets: 0131 228 1404 | www.traverse.co.uk

Crewe Axis Arts Centre

Cheshire Campus, Manchester Metropolitan University, Crewe Green Rd
Crewe, CW1 5DU

Thursday 2 March 2017 

7.30pm | £8 (£5)

Tickets:  0843 2080 500 | www.axisartscentre.org.uk

Dundee Rep Theatre

Tay Square, Dundee, DD1 1PB

Tuesday 14 March 2017

7.30pm | £14

Tickets:  01382 223530 | www.dundeerep.co.uk

Crucible Theatre (Studio Theatre)

55 Norfolk Street, Sheffield, S1 1DA

Thursday 16 March 2017

7.45pm | £12

Tickets: 0114 249 6000 | www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk

Battersea Arts Centre

Lavender Hill, London, SW11 5TN

Monday 20 – Saturday 25 March 2017 | £10 (all tickets)

Monday 27 March – Saturday 1 April 2017 | £12.50 (£10)

8pm

Tickets: 020 7223 2223 | www.bac.org.uk

Oxford Playhouse

Oxford Burton Taylor Studio, 11 - 12 Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2LW 

Monday 3 April 2017

8pm | £10

Tickets: 01865 305305 | www.oxfordplayhouse.com 

Marlborough Theatre

4 Prince's Street, Brighton, BN2 1RD

Tuesday 4 April 2017

8pm | £12 (£10)

Tickets: 01273 570028 | www.marlboroughtheatre.org.uk

South Street Arts Centre

21 South Street, Reading, RG1 4QU

Wednesday 5 April 2017

8pm | £12 (£10)

Tickets: 0118 960 6060 | www.readingarts.com/south-street 

Northern Stage

Barras Bridge, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RH

Tuesday 11 and Wednesday 12 April 2017

7.45pm | £10 (£8)

Tickets: 0191 230 5151| www.northernstage.co.uk

HOME, 2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester, M15 4FN

Thursday 18 – Saturday 20 May 2017

7pm (Thu & Fri) // 2.15pm & 7.45pm (Sat only) | £10 (£8)

Tickets: 0161 200 1500 | www.homemcr.org

ARC, Stockton Arts Centre
Dovecot Street, Stockton on Tees, TS18 1LL

Thursday 8 June 2017

7pm | Pay what you decide

Tickets: 01642 525199 | www.arconline.co.uk

What was the inspiration for this performance?
I don't think it's possible to point to one singular moment of inspiration for a show - at least not this one - so I'll be a bit annoying and avoid answering the question directly. 

I wanted to make something that was about how it feels to live in a

world that is built on catastrophe. I was aware - for myself at least - of this world we find ourselves living in feeling more and more like a constant cavalcade of crisis. The disaster of now. 

I also think it feels like we're living in times of great change, like the end of something big, be it this particular stage of capitalism, or old certainties around nationhood and social structures. I knew I wanted to think around some of this stuff, and I wanted to do it by telling an apocalypse story.

I also really wanted to make something in a kind of DIY way again, like I did when I was first starting out working in a room in the Arches basement collaborating with musicians or whoever before a word was even written. You'd know a show was going to happen at the end of it because there was a date in the programme where I'd stand in front of a room with a microphone with some people. I'd begun to miss some of the urgency and immediacy of making work and meeting an audience in this way, so I rang up Tom Searle (of Show And Tell) who helped me get the necessary stuff in place and away we went.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
After Tom came on board I brought in Alex Swift, who I've been developing a completely different piece with and who I've built quite an important working relationship with over these last couple of years. Alex and I spent some time supported the Playwrights' Studio experimenting with stuff do with form and storytelling and he's really made a significant mark on the work. 

I tend to work with musicians a lot, and I thought of MJ McCarthy for this because of how versatile and collaborative he is and also because he's got a really sharp dramaturgical brain as well as a musical one. Julia Taudevin has had a major hand in everything I've ever made that I perform in, so I knew I wanted her by my side for this again. 

It's true that there's no such thing as a solo show, and everything I do is really collaborative because it's theatre. I knew that I wanted this show to be kind of back-to-basics in terms of process, but that I wanted to take risks and make new demands on myself through that - so I needed a team that I could trust but who could also challenge me and breathe a different kind life into what I do.

How did you become interested in making performance?
Dunno, really. I liked drama at school, I suppose. I have a running joke that I probably always just wanted to be in a band but can't play an instrument, so ended up doing this - hence my longstanding admiration for and collaboration with musicians of various stripes.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
Yes and no, in that there are different strands to what I do I think. In terms of this kind of writer-performer work, I suppose it is typical in that I was in a room with some collaborators before the script is even close to finished and that music is a big part of it. But the process towards making each show always feels completely different. I don't have a rule book.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
That's a tricky question and I don't know if I know how to answer it to be honest. It's stories, I just tell stories. My stuff has often been described as political, and that's probably true but so is everything else, all the time, always. 

I can tell you that I think this piece is more challenging than a lot of my previous work, both formally and in tone. It's more angry, more hurt, more difficult - and I want it to be difficult. Sometimes difficulty feels like the most appropriate response to the way the world is. Or maybe it's just a reflection of where I'm at just now. I wasn't interested in revisiting the warm-hearted fuzzy optimism of some of my early stuff, like Hitch. That said, I do hope and believe that there is heart and humanity in here. I hope it cares for its audience. I hope there are still some laughs.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
With all the love in the world for both critics and academics (I tried to be one once, don't you know) I do think this is the kind of question that only one of you guys could really come up with. I've chewed it over and I can't think of a helpful way of answering it and I think it's because, for me, the "strategies of shaping the experience" are just like, the whole of the thing of making the show. It's really important but so fundamental that it's actually pretty hard to summarise it in a general way, and a lot of it is way more instinctive than the question suggests.

What I can say is that I realised recently that basically everything I've made has been a variation on a search for connection and community in the face of a hugely atomised and isolating world. It's about a belief that we need each other, even when the world we've built seems set-up towards the opposite. 

And theatre can be a good place to unpick some of this, for obvious reasons. The real reason I continue to persevere with theatre, for all that it infuriates me a lot of the time, is that I still think that theatre and the stories that live within it can create a space for us to meet with each other and take stock of where we're at, together. And that that matters. So in terms of strategies for shaping the audience experience - that sense of meeting an audience, of being present and alive to each other is, for me, always at the forefront of everything.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Not really, if I'm honest, in that I think that's for other people to decide. There's definitely overlap between what I do and what many of my peers do, and there are other people who I admire hugely, of course. But it'd be presumptuous of me to place myself in a lineage of artists that are better than me,

Heads Up Dramaturgy: Kieran Hurley @ Edfringe 2016

Heads Up

Kieran Hurley with Show And Tell

credit: Jassy Earl

A city. Just like this. Right now. A woman staggers home after a two-day bender. A priest who doesn’t believe in God stares blankly at the endless disasters on the TV news. A finance worker tears down a Keep Calm And Carry On sign outside a Café Nero. In just one moment, all their worlds will end.

With an original innovative score by Michael John McCarthy, multi award-winner Kieran Hurley (Beats, Chalk Farm, Hitch) weaves a picture of a familiar city at its moment of destruction, asking what would we do if we found ourselves at the end of our world as we know it.




What was the inspiration for this performance?
I don't think it's possible to point to one singular moment of inspiration for a show - at least not this one - so I'll be a bit annoying and avoid answering the question directly. 

I wanted to make something that was about how it feels to live in a

world that is built on catastrophe. I was aware - for myself at least - of this world we find ourselves living in feeling more and more like a constant cavalcade of crisis. The disaster of now. 

I also think it feels like we're living in times of great change, like the end of something big, be it this particular stage of capitalism, or old certainties around nationhood and social structures. I knew I wanted to think around some of this stuff, and I wanted to do it by telling an apocalypse story.

I also really wanted to make something in a kind of DIY way again, like I did when I was first starting out working in a room in the Arches basement collaborating with musicians or whoever before a word was even written. You'd know a show was going to happen at the end of it because there was a date in the programme where I'd stand in front of a room with a microphone with some people. I'd begun to miss some of the urgency and immediacy of making work and meeting an audience in this way, so I rang up Tom Searle (of Show And Tell) who helped me get the necessary stuff in place and away we went.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
After Tom came on board I brought in Alex Swift, who I've been developing a completely different piece with and who I've built quite an important working relationship with over these last couple of years. Alex and I spent some time supported the Playwrights' Studio experimenting with stuff do with form and storytelling and he's really made a significant mark on the work. 

I tend to work with musicians a lot, and I thought of MJ McCarthy for this because of how versatile and collaborative he is and also because he's got a really sharp dramaturgical brain as well as a musical one. Julia Taudevin has had a major hand in everything I've ever made that I perform in, so I knew I wanted her by my side for this again. 

It's true that there's no such thing as a solo show, and everything I do is really collaborative because it's theatre. I knew that I wanted this show to be kind of back-to-basics in terms of process, but that I wanted to take risks and make new demands on myself through that - so I needed a team that I could trust but who could also challenge me and breathe a different kind life into what I do.

How did you become interested in making performance?
Dunno, really. I liked drama at school, I suppose. I have a running joke that I probably always just wanted to be in a band but can't play an instrument, so ended up doing this - hence my longstanding admiration for and collaboration with musicians of various stripes.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
Yes and no, in that there are different strands to what I do I think. In terms of this kind of writer-performer work, I suppose it is typical in that I was in a room with some collaborators before the script is even close to finished and that music is a big part of it. But the process towards making each show always feels completely different. I don't have a rule book.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
That's a tricky question and I don't know if I know how to answer it to be honest. It's stories, I just tell stories. My stuff has often been described as political, and that's probably true but so is everything else, all the time, always. 

I can tell you that I think this piece is more challenging than a lot of my previous work, both formally and in tone. It's more angry, more hurt, more difficult - and I want it to be difficult. Sometimes difficulty feels like the most appropriate response to the way the world is. Or maybe it's just a reflection of where I'm at just now. I wasn't interested in revisiting the warm-hearted fuzzy optimism of some of my early stuff, like Hitch. That said, I do hope and believe that there is heart and humanity in here. I hope it cares for its audience. I hope there are still some laughs.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
With all the love in the world for both critics and academics (I tried to be one once, don't you know) I do think this is the kind of question that only one of you guys could really come up with. I've chewed it over and I can't think of a helpful way of answering it and I think it's because, for me, the "strategies of shaping the experience" are just like, the whole of the thing of making the show. It's really important but so fundamental that it's actually pretty hard to summarise it in a general way, and a lot of it is way more instinctive than the question suggests.

What I can say is that I realised recently that basically everything I've made has been a variation on a search for connection and community in the face of a hugely atomised and isolating world. It's about a belief that we need each other, even when the world we've built seems set-up towards the opposite. 

And theatre can be a good place to unpick some of this, for obvious reasons. The real reason I continue to persevere with theatre, for all that it infuriates me a lot of the time, is that I still think that theatre and the stories that live within it can create a space for us to meet with each other and take stock of where we're at, together. And that that matters. So in terms of strategies for shaping the audience experience - that sense of meeting an audience, of being present and alive to each other is, for me, always at the forefront of everything.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Not really, if I'm honest, in that I think that's for other people to decide. There's definitely overlap between what I do and what many of my peers do, and there are other people who I admire hugely, of course. But it'd be presumptuous of me to place myself in a lineage of artists that are better than me,

Theatre Venue of the Month: The Arches 2011

Perhaps thanks to the credit crunch, Glasgow's performance landscape is shifting. The Arches usually begins its push for Behaviour around this time - the annual jamboree of international experimental work. Yet this year, it has focused on local, emerging artists, leaving May free for the Tron's festival

FEATURE BY MARGARET KIRK.
PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY  04 APRIL 2011


Strictly speaking, neither Davey Anderson, author of Brick Award winner Thickskin nor Claire Cunningham, now an international touring dancer, are emerging talents. The cast of Gareth Nicols' Platform 18 piece are Gary McNair and Kieran  Hurley, who have impressive previous form. But the two awards – the Brick scoops up two pieces from the Fringe, while Platform 18 is all about the new blood – alongside the announcement of Tom Pritchard as artist in residence adds to the feeling that The Arches are supporting young artists who do more than boast about their celebrity friends.

Gareth Nicols has been working his way up the directing hierarchy for the past few years: a graduate of the RSAMD's contemporary performance degree, Platform 18 acknowledges his rising star by supporting his creation of What Happened Is This, a play that combines storytelling, scripted and devised drama. With musical support from Michael John of Zoey Van Goey, this line up is something of a performance supergroup, although the inspiration for the piece was a little more mundane.

"I was sitting at home, giggling at these coincidence stories in Bella," Nicols laughs. "Everyone seems to have one, or people strive to pull threads together to make a coincidence." From this shared human need to make up stories, and the humour in telling them, Nicols pulled together his supergroup and won the Platform 18 Award.

Glasgow does have a strong dance community, and the appointment of Pritchard as associate artist connects The Arches to Dance House, for whom he runs a community company, and the many improvisers, in dance, criticism and music and film, who have been part of Pritchard's investigations. 

And while he is best known for his radical approach to creating dance, he is clearly no elitist. "Education plays a big part in my work, because it is here that I really gauge how well I can communicate ideas on a physical or intellectual level," he explains, before disavowing the idea that experimental means incomprehensible."Experimental for me translates as someone who is simply questioning what it is they are doing and how they might do it."

The return of Claire Cunningham's ME to Glasgow, after success at the 2009 Fringe and an international tour moves The Arches to the West End: although the University's G12 venue has been quiet for the past year, it serves as a better place for Cunningham's spectacular high wire acrobatics. ME pairs her two semi-autobiographical works, Mobile and Evolution, and showcases Cunningham as both dancer and aerialist.

"Mobile came initially from seeing an exhibition by the sculptor who invented mobiles," she begins. "It was something about the confusing distribution of weight." This inspired her to consider how she incorporates crutches into her work, "get them away from their quite negative associations," and use them to explore balance and suspension in an aesthetic form.

The third dance entry, When We Meet Again, was part of Dance Base's programme during the Fringe, and was described by Shimmy critic Mark Harding as "part ghost train, part date, part fair ground ride, part out of body experience." It refuses the rules of most art forms, and is a disorienting delight for stoner and philosopher alike.

With Clare Duffy bringing Money – The Game Show as another new work, and the version of Thickskin coming on the back of Fringe five stars, the programme is not only full but surveys the best of Scotland's new companies and artists.