Closer

This 25th anniversary production of Patrick Marber’s Olivier-Award winning play Closer receives a radical new staging directed by Clare Lizzimore (Olivier Award winning Bull), in a searing exploration of love, sex and the fragility of the human heart. It runs at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre from 14 July to 13 August, with opening night for press on 20 July.

Closer brings together an outstanding quartet of actors: Jack Farthing, (Prince Charles in Spencer, George Warleggan in BBC’s Poldark) as Dan; Ella Hunt (Scottish BAFTA nominee, Apple TV’s Dickinson) in her stage debut as Alice; Nina Toussaint-White (ITV’s The Sister, Rayburn in BBC’s Bodyguard) as Anna; and Sam Troughton (Aleksandr Akimov in HBO/Sky Atlantic’s Chernobyl; Beginning at the National Theatre and West End) as Larry. For the first time in the play’s history, the production will also feature a chorus: Kane Feagan, Georgia-Rose Oliver, Sam Purkis and Wilf Walsworth. They are all members of SPRINGBOARD, the Lyric’s ground-breaking, free two-year performance training programme which launched this year to provide unrivalled theatre-based training for aspiring young performers from backgrounds currently underrepresented in UK theatre.

Closer premiered at the National Theatre in 1997, directed by Patrick Marber, and won Olivier, Evening Standard and New York drama Critics Circle Awards. He also adapted the screenplay of the Hollywood hit film which was released in 2004.

‘What do you want?’
‘To be loved.’
‘That simple?’
‘It’s a big want.’

In the chaos of London; four strangers meet, fall in love and fall apart. A cult-classic about longing, lust, sex, and desire. Would you risk it all for a moment of passion?

Closer is written by Patrick Marber, directed by Clare Lizzimore, set and costume design by Soutra Gilmour, lighting design by Richard Howell, composition, musical direction and live performance by Arun Ghosh, sound design by Christopher Shutt, movement direction by Malik Nashad Sharpe, and casting by Lotte Hines.