The Tricycle Theatre

The Tricycle Theatre has established a unique reputation for presenting plays that reflect the cultural diversity of its community; in particular plays by Black, Irish, Jewish, Asian and South African  writers, as well as for responding to contemporary issues and events with its ground-breaking ‘tribunal plays’.

In 1994 the Tricycle produced Half the Picture by Richard Norton-Taylor and John McGrath (a dramatisation of the Scott Arms to Iraq Inquiry), which was the first play ever to be performed in the Houses of Parliament. The next, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the 1946 War Crimes Tribunal, was Nuremberg, which was followed by Srebrenica – the UN Rule 61 Hearings, which later transferred to the National Theatre and the Belfast Festival. In 1999, the Tricycle’s reconstruction of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, The Colour of Justice, transferred to the West End. It completed a national tour which included Belfast and the Royal National Theatre in 1999. In 2003 Justifying War – Scenes from the Hutton Inquiry opened at the Tricycle. All five of these plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and have together reached audiences of over twentyfive million people worldwide.

In 2004 the Tricycle produced the critically acclaimed Guantanamo – ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’, written by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo from spoken evidence, which transferred to the West End and New York (where Archbishop Tutu appeared in the production). In 2006 the Tricycle presented a performance of the play at the Houses of Parliament and on Washington’s Capitol Hill. It has since been performed around the world and in the US through the ‘Guantanamo Reading Project’, which developed community productions of readings of the play. Twenty-five have already been held in cities across America.

Bloody Sunday – Scenes from the Saville Inquiry opened at the Tricycle in 2005 to critical acclaim and was also performed in Belfast and Derry, and was later broadcast by the BBC. It also received an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement. Notable theatre productions staged at the Tricycle have included the British premiere of The Great White Hope by Howard Sackler (later re-staged for the Royal Shakespeare Company), The Amen Corner by James Baldwin (which later transferred to the Lyric Theatre), the world premiere of Playboy of the West Indies by Mustapha Matura, which has subsequently received more than twenty productions all over the world, has been televised for BBC Television and has returned for tenth and twentieth anniversary productions; the original Tricycle production of the Fats Waller musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ transferred to the Lyric Theatre in the West End. The South African musical Kat and the Kings transferred from the Tricycle Theatre to the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End and won two 1999 Olivier Awards for Best New Musical and Best Actor – awarded to the entire cast. It later transferred to Broadway.

At the beginning of the new millennium highlights included the premiere of Harold Pinter’s The Dwarfs; and two world premieres of plays about the political situation in Northern Ireland: As the Beast Sleeps by Gary Mitchell and Ten Rounds by Carlo Gebler (nominated for the Ewart-Biggs prize). The 2002 production of Arthur Miller’s The Price returned to the Tricycle in 2003 before a successful run at the Apollo Theatre in the West End, and a national tour in 2004.

In 2005/6 the Tricycle pioneered a black ensemble company in three British premieres of African-American plays chronicling the black experience of the last hundred years: Walk Hard by Abram Hill, Gem of the Ocean by the late August Wilson and Fabulation by Lynn Nottage. Later the same year (together with Fiery Angel Ltd), the Tricycle presented John Buchan’s Thirty-Nine Steps, adapted by Patrick Barlow, to sell-out houses. This immediately transferred to the Criterion Theatre in the West End, and opened on Broadway in January 2008.

In November 2006, the Tricycle was proud to win a Special Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for ‘its pioneering political work’. In 2008 the Tricycle premiered Radio Golf – the last of August Wilson’s Decalogue chronicling the African-American experience of the twentieth century. The Tricycle has premiered six of August Wilson’s plays in Britain.

In the summer of 2009 the Tricycle launched its eight-hour trilogy about Afghanistan: The Great Game, which premiered plays by Richard Bean, David Edgar, David Greig, Amit Gupta, Ron Hutchinson, Stephen Jeffreys, Abi Morgan, Ben Ockrent, J. T. Rogers, Simon Stephens, Colin Teevan, Naomi Wallace and Joy Wilkinson.

Education and community activities are an integral part of the artistic output of the Tricycle. Last year there were more than 40,000 attendances by young people to see films and plays, or to take part in workshops.

The Tricycle’s home in the London borough of Brent comprises a theatre, cinema, art gallery, café and bar, and it is open all year round.

Box Office Phone: 020 7328 1000

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Box Office opening hours: 10am - 9pm, Monday - Saturday, and 2 - 9pm on Sundays.

For more Box Office and access information, please visit the “Box Office” section of the website.

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