WED 6 MAY - SAT 16 MAY
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“By following the fortunes of a particular couple from the late 1960s to the present, Bartlett offers an indictment of a generation… exhilaratingly combining the domestic and the epic. His play is rivetingly watchable.” Michael Billington, The Guardian
Are baby boomers to blame for the fact that their children’s generation is debt-ridden and adrift? Love, Love, Love takes on the baby boomer generation as it retires, and finds it full of trouble. Does each generation unwittingly disappoint the next?
It’s 1967. Kenneth and Sandra know the world is changing and they want some of it. Smoking, drinking, affectionate and paranoid, they journey forty years from initial burst to full bloom.
The pair meet, get married, have children, divorce and settle into retirement over the course of the play. We follow their trajectory in three acts that take place in 1967, 1990 and 2011, each capturing a specific moment in family life and British politics.
Their children, on the other hand, bitterly rail against their parents’ irresponsibility and their relaxed, laissez-faire attitude.
An Olivier award winning playwright, Mike Bartlett’s play Love, Love, Love premiered in a touring production in 2010 with a new production by the Royal Court Theatre in 2012 and has had revivals in London and Broadway.
A non-professional production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books
Age guidance 14+
This production features strong language, sexual dialogue, and mature themes. Smoking and the simulated taking of marijuana features in this performance.
Director's Notes
Reading scripts is a joy and knowing that no matter what I select the team at the Loft will make it possible is incredibly exciting – but it also makes the choice more difficult just because anything is possible!
Love, Love, Love by Mike Bartlett jumped out at me for its complicated characters, contemporary issues and the interesting format of intense snapshots of a family at twenty year intervals, with the actors ageing from teenagers to adults. It swings from deeply thought-provoking to very funny, with some cringe-making comments by the Mother from Hell via numerous bottles of wine.
Mike Bartlett has won many awards for his plays including Love, Love, Love and King Charles III but he’s probably best known for the TV series Dr. Foster, which is due to return later this year. Initially he didn’t like theatre and thought plays were boring, but then he saw Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and F***ing and Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and realised the power of contemporary theatre.
In Love, Love, Love he looks at life from two opposing points of view, following two idealistic students revelling in the Swinging Sixties through a frazzled marriage, to hedonistic retired boomers. He contrasts their choices and lifestyles with their children who are struggling with their emotions and their finances. Who had it best? Sandra and Ken who sacrificed their dreams, or Henry, the big brother with a solid work ethic or their children, Rose and Jamie, who were encouraged to do exactly what they wanted?
The story is told through the lens of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, mixed with booze, fags, lots of money, no money, fun and desolation. These parents and their children could come from different planets – they speak the same language, but can’t understand each other.
Through rehearsals the actors have explored their own experiences and views to bring depth and insight, not only to their characters, but also to the situations they find themselves in. Along with lots of laughter they have created something more powerful and complex than ever I could have hoped for.
Thank you to the actors, my stage manager, the production team and all the volunteers who give up their time so willingly to make our vision work. I hope the audience loves Love, Love, Love as much as we do.
LYNDA LEWIS
DIRECTOR, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
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