The Wolf From the Door, Royal Court

There's much mystery surrounding the premiere of The Wolf From the Door, but this is a show where the writing will very much take centre-stage. And to be honest we'd rather keep the outcome of this journey through the banalities of tea and W.I meetings for a surprise on the night.
Writer Rory Mullarkey has been steadily gaining a dedicated fan-base over the last three years, boosted by Cannibals, a hit at the Manchester Royal Exchange in 2013. Now he returns to the Royal Court, where he was a resident writer in 2010, with a script that has already won two awards. The theatre's confidence in the quality of his writing is shown in the selection of James MacDonald as director and Anna Chancellor in the cast. You might remember her as 'Duckface' in Four Weddings and a Funeral, but she also proved her stage credentials with a stunning Olivier-nominated performance and in Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre. This promises to showcase her talent for shape-shifting into vivid and unforgettable characters.
It is fitting that Mullarkey has received the Pinter Commission this year, awarded directly by Antonia Fraser, the widow of Harold Pinter, one of the foremost British playwrights of the twentieth century. Mullarkey is very much a descendent of Pinter's famously stark dialogue, dark themes and ever-surprising humour. 
As a Russian linguist, the young playwright and spent a year there training with a theatre company. His earlier work has borrowed much from the aesthetic and concerns of writers such as Gogol and Bulgakov. Now it seems that he has turned this hawk-eye for the uncanny and bizarre upon our own society. The result should be a funny and fascinating show, sure to reveal something unique and unexpected about our life in the UK today.