Same Time, Next Year new UK tour and casting announced

Bernard Slade’s Same Time, Next Year will embark on a new UK tour from January 2022.

London Classic Theatre has announced dates and casting for the production of the two-hander, which originally ran on Broadway in 1975.

Michael Cabot will direct Kieran Buckeridge (George) and Sarah Kempton (Doris) with the tour opening at Malvern Theatres on 26 January.

The show will then visit Winchester, Mold, Bury St Edmunds, Ilfracombe, Bracknell, Derby, Poole and Eastbourne, concluding at New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme on 16 April 2022.

Artistic Director Michael Cabot said: “We’re delighted to be starting rehearsals for this wonderful play. Same Time, Next Year is a charming, nostalgic romantic comedy from the 1970s, with a witty, engaging script.

“It’s our first new show in two years, so it’s been fantastic to be back in design and costume meetings as part of our pre-production. One of the big challenges of this play is the timeframe, which runs from 1951 to 1975, and convincingly showing the ever-changing fashions and styles as the years go by. Designer Bek Palmer has been ingenious in bringing these very different decades to life.”

Lighting designer Matthew Green completes the creative team.

Doris and George meet in 1951, a chance encounter in a Californian hotel that leads to a passionate one-night stand. Both are married to other people, but, soon aware that this might be the start of something, they promise to meet 12 months later. So begins a romantic love affair that lasts 25 years.

The play charts their lives through the ups and downs of parenthood, career highs and lows as well as the shifting fashions and morals of the passing decades.

Bernard Slade paints a bittersweet, nostalgic and funny portrait of two likeable protagonists who find themselves in the most unusual of long-term relationships.

Same Time, Next Year tour dates and venues

Malvern Theatres
26 – 29 January
www.malvern-theatres.co.uk

Theatre Royal Winchester
2 – 5 February
www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk

Theatr Clwyd
8 – 12 February
www.theatrclwyd.com

Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds
15 – 19 February
www.theatreroyal.org

The Landmark, Ilfracombe
22 – 23 February
www.landmark-ilfracombe.com

South Hill Park, Bracknell
25 – 26 February
www.southhillpark.org.uk

Derby Theatre
8 – 12 March
www.derbytheatre.co.uk

Lighthouse, Poole
25 – 26 March
www.lighthousepoole.co.uk

Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne
5 – 9 April
www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk/venue/devonshire-park-theatre

New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme
12 – 16 April
www.newvictheatre.org.uk