TRACY-ANN OBERMAN IS BACK IN THE WEST END - AND ON TOUR - WITH 'THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 1936'
Posted By Tim Todd | Posted 1 month ago
Opening at the Trafalgar Theatre on 28 December, the limited season runs until 25 January.
This important, groundbreaking production will then embark on a second UK tour for eight
weeks visiting: Liverpool, Bath, Southend, Salford, Fareham, Leeds and Cardiff, culminating in
Birmingham on 5 April 2025 - allowing audiences all over the UK the opportunity to
experience this “deeply relevant” (Daily Telegraph) play.
Tracy-Ann Oberman said: “I am so delighted that, by popular demand, MOV1936 is coming
back into the West End so soon after we finished. Demand has been so high that I feel bringing
it back, and this time to the beautiful Trafalgar Theatre and then on a national tour, is
essential. The message of my female Shylock - based on my Great Grandma, a widow in the
East End standing up to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists, with all her
neighbours and others horrified by the message of BUF - feels more pertinent than ever. The
play is about unity, standing together against hatred and the play’s impact has been beyond
my wildest hopes and ambitions for it.”
Ambition, power and political unrest explode onto the stage in this “striking and impactful”
(The Guardian) production that “makes theatre history” (Daily Telegraph). This “fascinating
and timely” (Daily Mail) reimagining sees Shakespeare’s classic transported to 1930s East
London against the backdrop of the Battle of Cable Street. It is adapted by Brigid Larmour and
Tracy-Ann Oberman.
With the city on the brink of political unrest, fascism sweeping across Europe and Oswald
Mosley’s British Union of Fascists threatening a paramilitary march through the Jewish East
End, strong-willed single mother Shylock runs a pawnbroking business from her house in
Cable Street where Mosley will march. When charismatic, antisemitic aristocrat Antonio
comes to her for a loan, a high-stakes deal is struck. Will Shylock take her revenge, and who
will pay the ultimate price?
