The Olivier and Evening Standard Award winning Blue/Orange is by Joe Penhall, one of this country's most important living playwrights, with theatre credits including Some Voices, Pale Horse and Mood Music, and screen credits from Enduring Love and The Long Firm to the Netflix hit Mindhunter.
The cast comprises John Michie (Taggart, ITV; Holby City, BBC; Coronation Street, ITV), Rhianne Barreto (The Outlaws, BBC; Honour, ITV; No Escape, Paramount+), and Matthew Morrison (EastEnders, BBC; Boy Meets Boy, Cosmic Productions). Highlighting inequalities in the treatment of mental health through sharp, confrontational dialogue and psychological tension, the plot follows a young, enigmatic Black patient named Christopher (Morrison) who claims to be the son of an African dictator and the two psychiatrists responsible for his treatment.
In a coup for the South London venue, Penhall will be revisiting his original groundbreaking script by repositioning the character of Bruce from a young White British man to a young South Asian woman. Not only does this shift ensure a more accurate representation of what the NHS looks like in 2025 but also raises the tension and stakes between the three characters, creating a multi-layered exploration of the inequalities of treatment within the mental health system.
We caught up with James Haddrell, director of Blue/Orange and Greenwich Theatre Artistic Director ahead of the production.
What can you tell me about this production of Blue/Orange?
As originally written, Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange is about Christopher, a black patient in the mental health system, being treated by two white doctors - the older Dr Smith on a journey to a professorship, and the new trainee Dr Flaherty. Their powerfully conflicting views about his treatment form the backbone of the play.
As originally written, Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange is about Christopher, a black patient in the mental health system, being treated by two white doctors - the older Dr Smith on a journey to a professorship, and the new trainee Dr Flaherty. Their powerfully conflicting views about his treatment form the backbone of the play.
However, for our production (and for the first time) the young trainee is now female and of south Asian heritage. This change has a pretty seismic effect on the story. Not only does it create a more recognisable picture of today’s NHS - it also adds a new dimension to every conversation about race, culture, community and identity in the play.
I have been lucky enough to assemble a pretty astonishing cast for this - John Michie (Holby City, Taggart), Rhianne Barreto (Honour, The Outlaws) and Matthew Morrison (Eastenders, Boy Meets Boy) will be starring in this 25th anniversary production.
What inspired you to want to stage this production?
When I moved to London and started my career in theatre, as Marketing Manager at the Warehouse Theatre in Croydon, I made a commitment to see as many shows as I possibly could, to buy the cheapest seats at the back of the theatre and grab whatever offers were around, basically to learn what was out there and how everyone else made theatre. I knew I loved live theatre but as a child we rarely had an opportunity to see shows, and I’d only seen a few at university despite studying English Lit. One of the shows from that time that has stayed with me throughout my career was Blue/Orange. The chance to go back to one of the most formative scripts in my career and have a go at it myself is incredibly exciting.
As well as that, we find ourselves at a frightening moment in British social history with the rapid resurgence of right-wing grass roots politics and thinly veiled (or not veiled at all) racism. Blue/Orange has a lot to say about how we define and understand people based on their ethnicity, how Britishness is and can be defined. The thrilling thing about the debates that rage in this play is that they’re not simple, they don’t spoon-feed a liberal audience with the politics they think they share, it challenges us to really interrogate the way we think about our diverse population. For me there could not be a better time to revisit this play.
How does this production fit in with the ethos of the work that is staged by Greenwich Theatre?
Over the last five or six years, Greenwich Theatre has really re-established its position as a significant producing venue in London, and we have built a programme of lesser-seen modern British drama by some of this country’s most exciting living playwrights. Caryl Churchill, Philip Ridley, Bryony Lavery, Steven Berkoff, Jez Butterworth and more have all granted us the rights to stage their work, and I had always hoped to add Joe Penhall to that list.
This production marks the 25th anniversary of the play, how special is it to get to stage a new version to mark the occasion?
It’s obviously incredibly special for us - it means that the writer is engaged with what we’re doing and excited enough by the proposed changes to get involved - but at the same time I can’t help feeling it’s the only way to stage the play now. We absolutely can’t risk presenting the notion that this play, and the issues it confronts, is a period piece, a glimpse of the past. Inequality in mental health treatment for patients from the global majority, institutionalised racism in the organisations that exist to help us, public misconceptions around mental health diagnoses - these are all still as relevant now as they were 25 years ago, so it’s essential that this is seen as a play for now.
What is your creative approach when you begin on a production like this?
I’ve always been a believer in early blocking - getting a show up on its feet early so that actors feel very early in the rehearsal process that they know how we’re going to share the show - but this one has been different. The issues in the play are so sensitive, and the ideas are so important to understand, that we have spent a lot longer than usual sitting and unpicking the play together.
“You know what I think? I think that you think you are scared. And that’s all it is, a thought. And I think that it’s not your thought.”
Having said that, it’s not a static play, so now that we’re immersed in it we’re putting the action around it and it’s absolutely coming to life.
How do you approach bringing together a creative team like you have assembled for this production?
One of the things that I love is working with a team of relatively early career creatives, over a period of time and a number of shows, to give them a chance to build a body of work and to expose them to a range of different styles. Our lighting designer Henry Slater has worked with me on a series of pantomimes, dramas and comedies, and our designer Jana Lakatos, new to Greenwich this year, has moved from a pair of family shows to an immersive show in the theatre bar to this production. They’ve found a fantastic visual language together for this show, a powerfully simple world for these complete ideas to thrive in.
What was the first piece of theatre you saw that had a big impact on you?
That’s hard to answer as early trips to the theatre always excited me. At university I remember being taken to a tiny theatre in Southampton to see a puppeteer called Stephen Mottram perform a solo show called The Seed Carriers, which taught me about detail and the power of visual images without speech. While studying I also saw Abi Morgan’s first play Skinned at the Nuffield Theatre, about a planned wedding in an abattoir. That made me follow Abi’s work ever since.
What keeps you inspired?
I’m a great audience watcher - I love sitting at the back of the theatre and seeing how people respond to a show. I love my job but it’s so important to remember that I’m not making shows for myself but for audiences - and if they don’t like it then maybe I’ve got it wrong, or maybe there’s something to learn in there.
I also have two young children so I’m now watching a new generation, on a daily basis, fall in love with stories and storytelling.
And I guess a lot of the plays that excite me are about injustice, privilege, inequality and wilful idiocy - all things which enrage me - and I’m lucky enough to have a platform to stage some of those stories. That’s something which will always inspire me.
What would you hope an audience takes away from seeing Blue/Orange?
This play is a great drama, a powerful battle of wills about a series of life and death decisions, so I hope audiences will be carried along by that - but I hope the thing that stays with them is the buzz that comes from unpicking something complex, from understanding that bad people have good ideas, good people get lost and do bad things, and that quality care, particularly in relationship to mental health, is critical but far from simple.
Where and when can audiences see the show?
We run at Greenwich Theatre from 1-25 October.
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