THE DEVIL'S LEAGUE...
PLAY IS CANCELLED
The playwright Stephen Lowe says the whole team behind the play 'The Devil's League' was left devastated after it was cancelled just two weeks before the opening night. The exclusive photo's on this page show the actors in rehearsals for the production which was due to start on Saturday, February 16th, 2008.
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Pictured above are Cloughie actor Colin Tarrant and actress Clare Calbraith, who plays Helen. The play was cancelled due to financial problems at the Derby Playhouse. The original opening night of February 2nd had already been put back two weeks. The news that the whole production was being cancelled came at the end of the second week of rehearsals.
"We were all devastated," said Stephen. "We'd had a full run-through of the play on the Friday morning and then in the afternoon we heard it wasn't going ahead. Having a show stopped before you can start it is a terrible experience."
The play is a black comedy set during the 1984 miners' strike, focussing on a fictional encounter between Brian Clough and the controversial newspaper baron Robert Maxwell, who owned Derby County. Maxwell is played by John Hodgkinson, who is pictured, below, rehearsing with Colin and Clare.
Colin Tarrant was preparing to revive the role of Cloughie, whom he portrayed brilliantly in the original Nottingham Playhouse production 'Old Big 'Ead in the Spirit of the Man'. The new play is quite different to that one - and some would say a lot darker, with Maxwell trying to tempt Clough with a devilish offer. A special preview of 'The Devil's League' was held at the Nottingham Playhouse on January 24th, 2008, when the actors took part in a reading, without costumes or a set.
Stephen Lowe said it was difficult to simply transfer the production to another theatre straight away. He told the BBC: "You cannot get theatre space for 14 to 15 months because theatres plan their strategies and programmes."