“Thursdays, curry night. Curry and a pint for a fiver. Go at five thirty, home by ten. Beat my mum up for a while. Bed by ten thirty.”
Four men convicted of domestic abuse offences meet each week in a community centre to undergo a perpetrator programme. Jen, the new group facilitator, feels out of her depth. But as she starts to make progress with the men inside the room, their lives outside begin to buckle. A shattering and darkly funny award-winning new play about responsibility and rehabilitation, Bindweed looks at what can be done to tackle the endemic of abuse at its root.
Winner of the Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022.
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Running time
1 hour 40 minutes (no interval) -
Age guidance
16+ -
Content warnings
"A modern day classic"– BritishTheatre.com
"Intense and brooding"– The Stage
The Company
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Laura Hanna
Jen
Laura Hanna
Jen
Laura Hanna (she/her) trained at LAMDA and most recently performed in The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare’s Globe, 2023).
Other theatre credits include: Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights (/Sam Wanamaker Theatre/Shakespeare’s Globe); Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia (Almeida); Living Newspaper Edition 5 (Royal Court Theatre); Signal Fires (Fuel Theatre); Karaokay (Bunker Theatre); A History Of Water In The Middle East (Royal Court Theatre);The Sweethearts (The Finborough Theatre/Raising Dark), A Bright Room Called Day (Southwark Playhouse); Lean (Strip Theatre/Tristan Bates Theatre); Beasts And Beauties (The Hampstead Theatre).
Television credits include Heartstopper (Netflix) and Casualty (BBC). -
Simon Darwen
Mike and Ed
Simon Darwen
Mike and Ed
Theatre credits include: Of Mice and Men (Birmingham Rep/Leeds Playhouse), Beginning, The Invincibles, A Different Class (Queens Theatre Hornchurch), Sirens (Mercury Theatre), After Birth (North Wall), Missing People (Leeds Playhouse/National Theatre Tokyo), Skellig (Nottingham Playhouse), Much Ado About Nothing (Jamie Hendry Productions/NESC/International Tour), The Here and This and Now (Plymouth Drum/Southwark Playhouse), The Pitmen Painters (New Vic), Our Country’s Good (Out of Joint), Lizzie Siddal (Arcola), The Armour/Hotel Plays (Defibrilator), Flare Path (National Tour), Catch 22(Northern Stage), Virgin(Watford Palace), King Lear (Theatre Royal Bath), Mad About The Boy (Young Vic/Bush Theatre), SourLips (Oval House), The Fifth Column, The Taming of the Shrew, What the Women Did (Southwark Playhouse),Love Love Love (Original Cast) (Paines Plough), Unrestless (Old Vic Tunnels),Accolade (Original Revival Cast) (Finborough Theatre), Ramshackle Heart (Public Theatre New York) Arse, Shove (Theatre 503), Mad Forest, The Wonder (BAC), The Merchant of Venice, The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC), Fanny & Faggot (Trafalgar Studios),Nikolina, Bedtime for Bastards (nabokov).
Television credits include: Top Boy, Years and Years, Britannia, Call the Midwife, Silent Witness, The Bletchley Circle, The Bill.
Film credit; The Great Escaper (released 2023)
Simon has also recorded numerous audiobooks and Radio Plays -
Shailan Gohil
Peter and Charlie
Shailan Gohil
Peter and Charlie
Theatre Includes: Love’s Labour’s Lost (RSC), Mother Goose (UK Tour), Jack Absolute Flies Again (Royal National Theatre), Sunset Boulevard (Royal Albert Hall), South Pacific (Chichester Festival Theatre), Mamma Mia! London (Novello Theatre), Dick Whittington (Qdos Entertainment).
Trained at: Bird College of Dance, Music & Theatre Performance.
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Josie Brightwell
Nina, Siobhan and Belinda
Josie Brightwell
Nina, Siobhan and Belinda
Josie trained at The Central School of Speech and Drama graduating with a 1st Class BA (Hons) Acting degree.
Credits include: Judy Porter in BBC’s ‘Call The Midwife’; Alison in ‘Mum’s The Word: UK Tour’; Spa assistant in ‘Michael McIntyre’s Big Show’; Factory Girl in Les Misérables’; Eulampia Petrovna in ‘Black Snow’ at the Moscow Art Theatre; ‘The Emperor of the moon’ workshop at NT Studio; ‘Made in Dagenham 25th Anniversary Concert’ at The Palladium; Peggy in ‘The War of the Worlds’; Baba Yaga in ‘Hansel and Gretel’; Flora in Tennessee Williams’ ‘27 wagons full of cotton’
Josie is absolutely delighted to be a part of such an important and thrilling new play. She’s also particularly excited that Bindweed is starting its journey in her home county of Essex.
She would like to thank her loved ones and fantastic agents at CKG for their ongoing support. -
Sean Kingsley
Brian and Alistair
Sean Kingsley
Brian and Alistair
West End: Aleksandr Voloshin Patriots (Noel Coward Theatre), Ursus The Grinning Man (Trafalgar Studios), Jean Valjean Les Miserables (Queens/Palace Theatres), George The Drowsy Chaperone (Novello), Braithwaite Billy Elliot (Victoria Palace), Tom Jenkins Scrooge (Dominion), Admetus Cats (New London), Me and My Girl (Adelphi).
Other theatre includes: Aleksandr Voloshin Patriots (Almeida); Kobus Mandela (Young Vic); Mal The Addams Family (UK Tour/London Palladium); Billy Once (New Wolsey); Ursus The Grinning Man (Bristol Old Vic); Oxy and the Morons (New Wolsey); Annas Jesus Christ Superstar (Regent’s Park); Gyp Decarlo Jersey Boys (UK tour); Max Jackie the Musical (Dundee Gardyne); Khashoggi We Will Rock You (10th anniversary world tour); Judas Jesus Christ Superstar (Minack); Eddie/Dr Scott The Rocky Horror Show (European Tour); Frederick Trumper Chess, 20th Anniversary Concert (Oslo); Bill Austin Mama Mia (International Tour); The Man in Some Girls are Bigger than Others (Lyric Hammersmith, National Tour, Dublin); Mike Hot Pants (Oldham Coliseum); Cyrano de Bergerac Cold Moon Rising (Jermyn Street); Tom Jenkins Scrooge (National/European Tours); Mike Costa A Chorus Line (Derby Playhouse); Slap Hot Shoe Shuffle (National Tour); Gabey On the Town (National Tour); Joe Matchgirls (Bromley); A Month in the Country, The Rivals and Toad of Toad Hall (Liverpool Playhouse); Fiddler on the Roof (Liverpool Empire).
Notable workshops: The Wall (Roger Waters/Complicite), Martin Guerre (Boublil and Schönberg/The Old Vic)
Actor/Musician: Merlin in Sword In The Stone; Sarah the Cook Dick Whittington; Fleshcreep Jack & The Beanstalk, King Camelot Sleeping Beauty (Ipswich New Wolsey Rock Panto); Orin Little Shop Of Horrors (Birmingham Rep).
Film/TV: Nick Black Doves (Netflix/Noisy Bear/Sister), Dave The Responder (Dancing Ledge Productions), Alan London Road (Cuba Pictures), PC Harrison Poirot (LWT), Stuart Ambrose Wire in the Blood (Coastal); Colin Piper Merseybeat, (BBC); Gary Stephens The Bill, (Talkback).
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Moray Treadwell
Frank
Moray Treadwell
Frank
Theatre includes – internationally: The Beatles LOVE show (Cirque Du Soleil / Apple, Las Vegas), The Ruling Class (English Theatre Frankfurt), The Importance of Being Earnest and Corpse (Vienna’s English Theatre), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Moving Theatre / National Theatre of Macadonia), Waiting for Godot (Italian tour. Il Palchetto/ Good luck Prods).
In the UK: The Railway Children (Theatre Tracks, Kings Cross London / York Theatre Royal), Macbeth (Colchester Mercury), Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds), Twelfth Night (Contexture Theatre), Wait Until Dark, The Little Foxes (Perth Rep), Amadeus, Cause Celebre, Absurd Person Singular, Charley’s Aunt, Wuthering Heights, Man and Superman (Pitlochry Festival Theatre), The Caretaker, The Last Yellow (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton). And national tours of: Some Mother’s Do ‘Ave ‘Em (Limelight), No Man’s Land and Hysteria (London Classic Theatre), Arsenic and Old Lace (Kenny Wax) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Michael Rose).
Television includes: The Witcher – Blood Origin (Netflix); Eastenders, Manchild, My Family, Murder Most Horrid, Beck (BBC and associates); Whose Baby? (Channel 4); Downton Abbey (Carnival); Planespotting (Granada); Wuthering Heights (LWT).
Film: Don’t Move (Hammerstone, Capstone, Raimi Productions, Netflix), Pirates of the Caribbean; Dead Man’s Chest (Bruckheimer/Disney), Round Ireland with a Fridge (Tony Hawks, Ed Bye), People We Hate at the Wedding (Amazon)
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Martha Loader
Writer
Martha Loader
Writer
Martha is a playwright, actor and producer from Ipswich. Previous work has been presented by HighTide, Mercury Theatre, Cambridge Junction, and INK. She is an associate artist of the New Wolsey Theatre (supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and Film4), and is currently working on commissions from Menagerie Theatre Company, and the Almeida Theatre as part of the ‘Genesis New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme’. This year she has been selected for both the Channel 4 Screenwriting and BBC Voices schemes. Her play Bindweed won the Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022. Produced by Mercury Theatre, New Wolsey Theatre and HighTide, in association with Royal Exchange Theatre, Bindweed will tour in summer 2024, and will be published by Nick Hern Books.
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Jennifer Tang
Director
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Lulu Tam
Designer
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Ric Mountjoy
Lighting Designer
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Jasmin Kent Rodgman
Sound Designer
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Jennifer Jackson
Movement Director
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Ruth Cooper-Brown of Rc-Annie Ltd
Fight Director
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Chani Mitchell
Assistant Director
This production is supported by
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New Wolsey Theatre
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The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting
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Royal Exchange Theatre