The Mary Wallace theatre in Twickenham is gearing up to perform their rendition of Dawn King’s Ciphers’, airing at the end of the month.
Ciphers’, airing between 30 May and 6 June, is a cunning, psychological thriller about espionage, secret identities and surveillance which follows a protagonist’s investigation into her spy sister’s unexplained death.
Harry Medawar, director of the theatre’s production of Ciphers’, was inspired after seeing the ‘brilliant’, original production in 2013 and relating to the play through personal experience.
He said: “Ciphers’ is set in a world I know something about, not through having worked in it myself.
“But through some of the issues and individuals I dealt with working in London and Brussels on a range of issues.
“Including the control of defence exports and dealing with foreign government officials.”
Medawar is also a chair of the Richmond Shakespeare Society (RSS), and having directed over 30 plays will bring an expertise to Ciphers’, along with many more upcoming, exciting productions.
Moving to his position as chair of the RSS board has allowed Medawar to continue delivering great theatre and honouring the works of legendary playwrights like Shakespeare.
Theatre is a passion for Medawar and on being a director, he said: “Every time it’s different but the pleasure is always the same.
“Seeing a group of actors move from simply reading their character’s lines to becoming their character, body and soul… And then finally becoming bonded and combining to create the production.”
Ciphers’ is a multilingual production, featuring Japanese, Punjabi and Russian, and the RSS cast have fully embraced the languages in the original works.
This has proved a challenge for the team, some of whom have had to learn a new language for the play, but they have welcomed it with diligence and willingness.
Luckily for the audience, they won’t be expected to become fluent in these languages before it airs, as this production of Ciphers’ will be a captioned performance.
Access to great theatre for everyone is a priority for the RSS, with professional lip-speaker Asha Gill working with them previously to implement captioning regularly in its productions.
The theatre’s first captioned performance was December’s production of The Ghost Train.
Ciphers’ will air between 30 May and 6 June, tickets are available on their website.
Featured Image Credit: Raymond Wheatan
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