Lovesong (Oberon Modern Plays)

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ABI MORGAN’S writing for the screen includes The Invisible Woman, the Margaret Thatcher film Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep, the flagship BBC TV drama The Hour and the BAFTA award-winning drama Sex Traffic (Channel 4). She has recently collaborated with Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender on the upcoming feature film Shame. She previously worked with Frantic Assembly on the much praised Tiny Dynamite, and her other previous writing for the stage includes The Night Is Darkest Before The Dawn (part of the Tricycle Theatre’s Great Game season), Fugee (NT New Connections), Tender (Hampstead) and Splendour (Paines Plough).

Lovesong by Abi Morgan is a textbook weepie which beats with such profound truth that you’re held rapt.She met Jacob at a party. She’d always vowed not to get involved with an actor, but there he was: they collided with “absolute velocity”. By their fifth date, he’d virtually moved in. Their relationship wasn’t without its complications – their daughter was a baby when they first had counselling – but she was also certain about him, this energetic, joy-chaser of a man. Her parents (her mother is the actor Pat England, her father the theatre director Gareth Morgan) divorced when she was small, though they remained friendly, and somehow this has worked in her favour. “I’ve always felt less, rather than more, likely to separate,” she says. “Though I am curious about the legacy of divorce, for children.” Directed by Frantic Assembly's artistic directors Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, the production will tour the UK, beginning on 30 September 2011 at the Drum Theatre, Plymouth, with a three week London run at the Lyric Hammersmith from 11 January 2012 (Plymouth press night 3 October; London press night 12 January). It’s an incredibly well-cast production. The actors are well-matched in their respective incarnations of the couple. The play is directed by Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, and the physical elements, the use of choreography, is superb throughout; the use of movement allows these two versions of the same couple to express themselves. Sian Phillips and Sam Cox in particular show their versatility as performers, undertaking a series of energetic moves that belie their maturity. The use of dance is well judged and works with the text, never overstaying its welcome or distracting from the overall work.

In May 2022, Morgan released a memoir entitled This Is Not a Pity Memoir, in which she discusses her husband's battle with encephalitis and Capgras delusion. [12] Personal life [ edit ] SAM COX’S recent stage work includes Anne Boleyn, All’s Well That Ends Well (both Shakespeare’s Globe), Inherit the Wind (Old Vic), Arcadia (West End), God in Ruins (RSC/Soho), Macbeth and King John (both RSC). His film and TV work includes Doctor Who (BBC TV), Prime Suspect (Granada) and Hippy Hippy Shake. Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, who share the credits for direction and choreography, create moments of gorgeous physicality. Ian William Galloway's elegant video design is full of swooshing starlings, and there's spacious music to define the mood.

LEANNE ROWE’S theatre credits include Dirty Dancing (West End), Talent (Menier Chocolate Factory) and Mysterious Skin (Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh). Her film credits include Jane Eyre (dir. Franco Zeffirelli) and Oliver Twist (dir. Roman Polanski.

Love Song is a piece of theatre that is about growing old and falling in love. About the endurance of relationships and the decaying of the human body. It’s a refreshing, more distilled Frantic Assembly production, and one that will be sure to strike an emotional cord within each and every one of its audience members. If Love Song has anything to teach a younger audience, it is to enjoy life to its fullest, to accept love when it happens, and to understand that relationships are about being in a constant flux, even if you’re nearing ‘the end’. Nothing is a given, and everything is to play for. A caring and weepy night of theatre. Miss Morgan has written a portrait of love that starts out as two simple stories following a couple Bill and Maggie, viewed at stages of their lives over forty-odd years apart. But the writing is sometimes vague or twee where it needs to be vivid. The desire to speak generously of universal experiences robs the play of a dense and satisfying specificity. Of the characters only William - played with great conviction and fluency by Edward Bennett - feels truly magnetic. Ravindran, Manori (27 January 2020). "Writer Abi Morgan Reveals Breast Cancer Diagnosis". Variety. Archived from the original on 28 January 2020 . Retrieved 13 March 2020. Lovesong intertwines a couple in their 20s with the same man and woman a lifetime later. Their past and present selves collide in this haunting and beautiful tale of togetherness.

a b c "Writer Abi Morgan has last laugh at the Emmys". Wales Online. 23 September 2013. Archived from the original on 25 September 2013 . Retrieved 23 September 2013. Leanne Rowe's theatre credits include Dirty Dancing (West End), Talent ( Menier Chocolate Factory) and Mysterious Skin (Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh). Her film credits include Jane Eyre (dir. Franco Zeffirelli) and Oliver Twist (dir. Roman Polanski. The Mistress Contract at The Royal Court Theatre". The Royal Court Theatre. Archived from the original on 15 September 2013 . Retrieved 13 September 2013. Having not dared to show any of her writing "to anyone for five years", her first professional stage credit was in 1998 with Skinned at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton. She has written plays for the Royal Exchange Studio Theatre Manchester, the Royal Lyceum Theatre, the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Court, London. [6] Her 2001 play Tender commissioned by Birmingham Rep Theatre and co-produced with the Hampstead Theatre gained her a nomination as "most promising playwright" at the 2002 Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards. Abi Morgan’s love story time-warps us through the 40 years’ marriage of Maggie (Siân Phillips) and Billy (Sam Cox). That sometimes bumpy relationship is drawing to a close as Maggie’s increasing and terminal frailty forces the couple into making some drastic preparations. The powerful poignancy of the piece is further ratcheted up by the presence of their younger selves about to begin their journey into a long but childless marriage. Pain is never far away and the constancy of their relationship is tested as the years march on.