Photo by Helen Murray
‘You never allow me tell my story. I been trying to tell it someone and nobody listenin’
Charming, flawed, and with the gift of the gab, we all know a man like August Henderson. Between his three kids, devoted wife-to-be, and part-ownership of a fruit and veg shop, he is proud of the life he has built since landing in his beloved West Bromwich.
So, when faced with deportation to a country he has no memory of, he isn’t prepared to go quietly. Listen up, he is ready to tell his own story.
Poignant and hilarious in equal measure, August in England gives insight into the lives impacted by the injustice of the Windrush scandal.
★★★★★ “Lenny Henry blazes with charisma in his devastating debut play” Daily Telegraph
Written and performed by Lenny Henry in his playwriting debut, the celebrated actor and comedian brings his vast talents onto the stage in this intimate one-man show. Co-directed by the Bush Artistic Director, Lynette Linton (Sweat, House of Ife), and Associate Artistic Director, Daniel Bailey (Red Pitch, The High Table), August in England makes its world premiere in April 2023.
Join as a supporter and unlock benefits including the best seats even at sold out shows
Our Star Supporters are eligible for invites to guest nights, access to the best seats even at sold-out shows and even an invite to an unforgettable Lone Star dinner, hosted by Lenny Henry and Lynette Linton. Find out more.
Amelia Gentleman is a British journalist. She is a reporter for the Guardian and author of The Windrush Betrayal, Exposing the Hostile Environment. She won the Paul Foot award, Cudlipp award, an Amnesty award, journalist of the year British journalism awards and London press club print journalist of the year for Windrush investigations. She has also won the Orwell prize, feature and specialist writer of the year. Previously she reported from Delhi, Paris and Moscow.
Chloe Wilson is a Stage Management graduate from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Her Company Stage Manager credits include: Potted Panto (Apollo Theatre/The Core, Corby Cube), Trainspotting Live and Oi Frog and Friends! Live (UK Tours) and Straight White Men (Southwark Playhouse).
Her credits as Stage Manager include: Echo Land (Rich Mix), Nevergreen (Poplar Union), A Silver Bell, Liminal, Clean @ 17 and Death & Dancing (Kings Head Theatre), The Mikado (The Maltings Theatre) and Juliet & Romeo (Upstairs at The Gatehouse).
Her credits as Assistant Stage Manager include: Windfall (Southwark Playhouse) and L’Enfant Prodigue and Passion, Poison & Petrifaction (Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music).
Daniel Bailey is a director, dramaturg and writer for stage and screen. He is currently Associate Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre, London, having joined the team in 2019 alongside Artistic Director Lynette Linton. Prior roles include Associate Director at Birmingham Rep Theatre (after initially joining as part of the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme), Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio, Associate Artist at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Resident Assistant Director at The Finborough Theatre, and on the Young Vic’s directing programme.
His directing work at the Bush Theatre includes the upcoming Lenny Henry’s August in England (co-directed with Lynette Linton) which opens spring 2023, Red Pitch by Tyrell Williams (Stage Debut Award Winner 2022) and Temi Wilkey’s The High Table (Stage Debut Award winner 2020). I Wonder If (presented with YV Taking Part) had a run at the Young Vic Theatre in late 2022 before going on a community tour, and Daniel was the Creative Associate on the UK Premiere of Bootycandy at Gate Theatre.
His work at Birmingham Rep includes Joe Penhall’s Blue Orange; Concubine; Stuff; I Knew You; Abuelo, Jump! We’ll Catch You; Made In India/Britain; and Exhale. His previous directing work includes plays with Talawa Theatre Company, Manchester Royal Exchange, New Heritage Theatre, and the New Vic.
His film and TV director credits include: Dropped (Mothers Best Child); On Belonging (Young Vic); Malachi (S.E.D); Floating on Clouds (Kingdom Entertainment Group) and Y.O.L.O. Therapy (S.E.D).
Deirdre O’Halloran is the Literary Manager at the Bush Theatre, working to identify and build relationships with new writers, commission new work and guide plays to the stage.
At the Bush she’s dramaturged plays including Olivier Award winners Baby Reindeer by Richard Gadd and The P Word by Waleed Akhtar, Lava by Benedict Lombe and An Adventure by Vinay Patel.
Deirdre was previously Literary Associate at Soho Theatre, where she worked as a dramaturg on plays including Girls by Theresa Ikoko and Fury by Phoebe Eclair-Powell. She led on Soho Theatre’s Writers’ Lab programme and the biennial Verity Bargate Award.
As a freelancer, Deirdre has also been a reader for Out of Joint, Sonia Friedman Productions and Papatango.
Duramaney Kamara was the composer, sound designer and resident DJ for Dismantle, a festival of work by Project 2036 at the Bush Theatre.
As music and sound designer, his credits for the Royal Court include: My Mum’s a Twat and Instructions For Correct Assembly. As composer & sound designer, for the Royal Court: Katzenmusik (Young Court); Tottenham Symphony(Beyond the Court).
As a performer, his theatre credits include: Boy (Almeida); The Response (Seagull/Mercury). As a performer, film credits include: Yardie, What Happened to Evie.
Gino Ricardo Green is a British Director and Video/Projection designer whose most recent Projection Design work includes SWEAT at the Gielgud Theatre (West End) and LAVA at the Bush Theatre.
Gino is currently associate projection designer for GET UP STAND UP! The Bob Marley Musical at the Lyric Theatre (West End).
Previous work also includes SMALL ISLAND at The National Theatre, BE MORE CHILL at The Other Palace, and HASHTAG LIGHTIE at the Arcola Theatre.
As a filmmaker, Gino’s directorial debut film A SILENT NIGHT was screened in competition at the Academy Award® Qualifying Festival, URBANWORLD in NYC, presented by Ava DuVernay.
He is also co-founder of BLACK APRON ENTERTAINMENT, where recent screen credits includes PASSAGES, starring Malachi Kirby, Sarah Niles and more. Black Apron Entertainment have also produced commissioned work written by Roy Williams, Lynette Linton, Winsome Pinnock.
Theatre includes Blues for an Alabama Sky, Rockets and Blue Lights, Death of England: Delroy, Death of England, Small Island, Nine Night, Barber Shop Chronicles, Angels in America, Les Blancs, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (National Theatre); Best of Enemies, Cock, To Kill A Mockingbird, Get Up, Stand Up, The Glass Menagerie, Constellations, 2:22, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Dreamgirls (West End); Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, ear for eye, (Royal Court Theatre); Mandela, Fairview, Death of a Salesman, The Convert (Young Vic Theatre); The Dolls House Part II, Marys Seacole, Love and other Acts of Violence, (Donmar Warehouse); Jitney (Old Vic); Retrograde, The Wife of Willesden, Pass Over (The Kiln); Richard II (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse); Guys and Dolls (Talawa Theatre Company); Caroline, or Change (Chichester Festival Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, West End); Eclipsed (The Gate); A Midsummer Nights Dream (Shakespeare North).
Film includes Drift, Aisha (for Letitia Wright), The Silent Twins.
TV includes The Power, Mood, The Baby, Small Axe.
Jai trained at RADA and won the 2016 Association of Lighting Designer’s ETC Award.
Recent designs include Othello (National Theatre); Graceland (Royal Court); The Trials (Donmar Warehouse); Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Lyric Hammersmith/ Sheffield Theatres); Wuthering Heights (St Ann’s Warehouse/National Theatre/US Tour/Wise Children); My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do?) (Ambassadors Theatre/Garrick Theatre/Underbelly/Turbine Theatre); Chasing Hares (Young Vic); Cruise (Duchess Theatre); The Cherry Orchard (The Yard/HOME); Cherry Jezebel (Liverpool Everyman); House of Ife, Lava (Bush Theatre); Worth (Arcola Theatre/New Earth); Birthmarked (Bristol Old Vic); Big Big Sky, The Hoes (Hampstead Theatre); The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Northern Stage); Out of the Dark (Rose Theatre Kingston); Shuck’n’Jive, Whitewash (Soho Theatre); Anansi the Spider (Unicorn Theatre); I’ll Take You To Mrs. Cole (Complicite); Glory (Duke’s Theatre/Red Ladder); Cuzco (Theatre503); Losing Venice (Orange Tree Theatre); Out There on Fried Meat Ridge Road (White Bear Theatre/Trafalgar Studios 2).
Lenny Henry has risen from being a cult star on children’s television to becoming one of Britain’s best-known comedians, as well as a writer, philanthropist and award-winning actor.
Lenny Henry’s first play, August in England, premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2023 co-directed by Lynette Linton and Daniel Bailey.
In recent years Lenny has starred in The Comedy of Errors at The National, Fences at the Duchess Theatre, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui at The Donmar and most recently August Wilson’s King Hedley II at Theatre Royal Stratford East in 2019.
Lenny’s television credits include Broadchurch, The Syndicate, The Long Song and his biographic Danny and The Human Zoo. Lenny’s Production Company, Douglas Road, has achieved success in partnership with Burning Bright on the recently acclaimed The Commonwealth Kid documentary and has a host of other programmes in the pipeline.
As a co-founder of Comic Relief Lenny was delighted to announce this year that the British public has donated over £1billion to Comic Relief over the last 30 years.
Lenny is a strong advocate for diversity, taking his work on the subject to Cannes in order to deliver the Keynote speech launching the idea of offering tax breaks for diversity, as well as talks given in Rome to the global TV and film insider audience.
Lenny was chosen by Baroness Doreen Lawrence to interview three beneficiaries of the Stephen Lawrence trust at his memorial in 2018.
Lenny recently released his memoir ‘Who Am I Again?’ in October 2019.
He has been a Trustee of the National Theatre since February 2016.
Lynette Linton has been Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre since 2019. Her first season was a series of ground-breaking debuts from UK and Irish writers. She was previously Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar Warehouse and Associate Director at the Gate Theatre.
Lynette directed the UK premiere of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-w inning play Sweat (Donmar Warehouse, Gielgud Theatre) for which she won ‘Best Director’ at the inaugural Black British Theatre awards. Sweat also won the Evening Standard award for ‘Best Play’ and was nominated for an Oliver award for ‘Best New Play’.
Her production of Richard II (Shakespeare’s Globe) which she directed with Adjoa Andoh, marked the first ever company of women of colour in a
Shakespeare play on a major UK stage. Lynette recently made her National
Theatre debut directing a new production of American writer Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky.
Additional directing credits include: Lenny Henry’s August in England, Beru Tessema’s House of Ife and Jackie Kay’s Chiaroscuro (all Bush Theatre); Assata Taught Me (Gate); Function (National Youth Theatre); This Is (ArtsEd); Naked (VAULT Festival); This Wide Night (Albany). She was also co-director on Chicken Palace (Stratford East). TV credits include: My Name is Leon (BBC), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA.
Theatre writing credits include: Hashtag Lightie (Arcola); Chicken Palace and Step (Stratford East). TV writing credits include: Look at Me (ITV).
She is co-founder of theatre and film production company Black Apron
Entertainment who produced Passages: A Windrush Celebration with the Royal Court, a project she also curated.
Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Malena Arcucci is a theatre designer and costume supervisor based in London. She is co-artistic director of Mariana Malena Theatre Company.
Design credits include: Strangers Like Me (NT Connect and Hackney Shed); The Bit Players (Southwark); Friday Night Love Poem (Zoo Venues Edinburgh); Point of No Return (Actor’s Centre); La Llorona (Dance City Newcastle); The Two of Us (Theatre Deli); Playing Latinx (Camden’s People’s Theatre) and various productions in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Associate Designer credits include: Dear Elizabeth (Gate); Chiaroscuro (Bush); Thebes Land and Tamburlaine (Arcola).
Costume Supervisor credits include: Sucker Punch (Queen’s Theatre); Bootycandy (Gate); Super High Resolution (Soho); The Boys are Kissing (Theatre503); Blues for an Alabama Sky (as Assistant, National); The Cherry Orchard (Yard / HOME); Chasing Hares (Young Vic); House of Ife (Bush); Lotus Beauty (Hampstead); Moreno and Milk and Gall (Theatre503); Raya (Hampstead).
Set and costume design includes Sunny Side Up at Theatre Peckham; Of The Cut at the Young Vic; The Gift at RADA; SAMSKARA at the Yard; Red Velvet at RADA; 846 Live at Theatre Royal Stratford East; Me for the World at the Young Vic; (Co -Set and Costume Designer) For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad at Hackney Showroom; Not Now, Bernard at the Unicorn.
Costume design includes Newsies at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre; Hamlet at Bristol Old Vic; Playboy of the West Indies at Birmingham Rep; A Number at the Old Vic; Old Bridge at the Bush; White Noise at the Bridge; Is God Is at the Royal Court; Anna X on the West End; Tales of the Turntable for Zoonation; and The Winter’s Tale (as Costume Supervisor) at Shakespeare’s Globe.
FILM includes Good Grief, Myrtle, Fellow Creatures, Swept Under Rug and (as Costume Trainee) My Name is Leon.
Film includes Good Grief, Fourteen Fractures, Myrtle, Fellow Creatures, Swept Under Rug and (as costume trainee) My Name is Leon.
Black British Theatre Award Winner for Costume Design Recognition 2020.
Pete Rickards is an experienced Production Manager and Technical Consultant within the performing arts industries. He has undertaken numerous technical and design roles across multiple disciplines alongside production management, meaning he is well placed to understand the complexity of roles within the production team.
Pete has managed shows throughout the UK and Europe for over a decade at venues including The Roundhouse, Hackney Empire, Schaubühne (Berlin), Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Soho Theatre, Liverpool Everyman, Battersea Arts Centre, Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham O2 Academy, and Nottingham Playhouse.
Pete has also designed, built and run immersive experiences for clients, including Merlin Entertainment and The Tussauds Group.
He has toured and worked with musicians and artists worldwide for many years, including: Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Shit Theatre, B Team, Sikth, We are The Ocean and Mallory Knox.
Theatre credits for the Bush include: House of Ife.
Shelley Maxwell won the award for Best Choreographer at the inaugural Black British Theatre Awards in 2019 for her work on Equus.
Theatre includes: Macbeth (Donmar); The Time Traveller’s Wife (Apollo); Mlima’s Tale (Kiln); Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play (Royal Exchange / Young Vic); August in England (Bush); The Secret Life of Bees (Almeida); Best of Enemies (Noël Coward / Young Vic); Tartuffe (Birmingham Rep); The Time Traveller’s Wife: The Musical (Storyhouse); Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Story (Lyric); J’Ouvert (Harold Pinter / Theatre503); After Life, Master Harold…and the Boys, Hansard, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night (National); Nine Night (National / Trafalgar); Equus (Stratford East / Trafalgar); Tartuffe (RSC); Macbeth (Globe); Faustus (Headlong at Lyric / Birmingham Rep); Cinderella (Lyric); Grey (Ovalhouse); King Hedley II (Stratford East); Cougar, Dealing with Clair (Orange Tree); Winter, Why It’s Kicking off Everywhere (Young Vic); Cuttin’ It (Young Vic / Royal Court); A Streetcar Named Desire (Nuffield / Clwyd Theatre Cymru / English Touring Theatre); Rules for Living (Royal & Derngate / Rose / English Touring Theatre); Apologia (English Theatre Frankfurt).
Television/Film includes: The Marvels (Disney); Anansi Boys (upcoming on Amazon); Ear for Eye (BBC/Fruit Tree Media); Romeo & Juliet (Sky Arts/PBS/National Theatre).
Sophie Haliburn trained at Rose Bruford College in Stage Management
Assistant Stage Management Theatre Credits include Sleepover (Bush Theatre), Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me (Kiln Theatre), Bridgerton (Secret Cinema), Wife Of Willesden (Kiln Theatre), NW Trilogy (Kiln Theatre), The Invisible Hand (Kiln Theatre).
Props Assistant Theatre Credits include Billy Elliot (Leicester Curve), Madhouse (Ambassadors), Oklahoma (Young Vic),Translations (National Theatre), Ocean At The End Of The Lane (National Theatre), Orpheus and Eurydice (London Coliseum), The Mask Of Orpheus (London Coliseum), A Taste of Honey (Tour) (National Theatre), Mr.Gum And The Dancing Bear – The Musical! (National Theatre), If Not Now When? (New Views) (National Theatre), Anna (National Theatre), Downstate (National Theatre)
