Hackney Empire

The Elephant Man

25 March 2008 - 29 March 2008

Venue: Main House

Price(s): £19.50, 17,50, 14.50 - Tuesday Evening £10 (Limited) Weds Mat £15, 13, 10

Sheffield Theatre comes to the Hackney Empire with a new production of The Elephant Man based on the Tony Award winning play and the hugely successful BAFTA Award-winning movie. 

"Director Ellie Jones takes this...material and fashions it into an engaging and handsome evening's drama, helped enormously by Ellen Cairns' simple but effective design and a hard-working ensemble." The Stage

"Sheffield Theatres is justifiably proud of their current production....John Merrick, played excellently by Joe Duttine without any vestige of prosthesis or built-up body shape.....one watches a series of rapidly altering scenes, like those packs of cards that one flicked through offering a dramatic kaleidoscope of events".

Ellie Jones, one of the UK’s hottest young directors, leads a dynamic ensemble company in this electric heart-rending true story.

"Stripped of the prosthetics of David Lynch's movie - Joe Duttine has to rely simply on his own acting skills and rises quite wonderfully to the enormous challenge, using voice and body to suggest a man who knows nothing but hideous disfigurement." The Stage

Abandoned, alone, a freak show attraction deemed a public indecency – John Merrick is infamous in Victorian England due to the extreme deformity of his body. Seeking the help of a young doctor he is admitted to the prestigious London Hospital and over the years Merrick is changed from obscene and pitiful freak to the witty favourite of the aristocracy. But can he ever truly be accepted for who he is beneath his deformities and become a man like any other?

"Ellie Jones has created a shadowy, monochrome 19th Century dreamworld of side shows and circus freaks. On a set that resembles a broken pregola, and with a wonky soundtrack of fairground waltz music, it looks sinister and enchanting." The Metro

Running Time:

Act 1: 55 minutes

Act 2: 55 minutes