Amy Lennox (Pocahontas) in rehearsals for Ramona Tells Jim. A Bush Theatre production. Photo: Sam Taylor
Scotland. One wet, midge-riddled field trip. Ramona is 15 and she’s totally cool. Honestly. She’s completely cool.
In 1998, Ramona, of Englandshire, has a penchant for Enya and hates bananas. On her geography field trip she meets Jim, a local laddie wearing an anti-pill fleece. He’s obsessed with hermit crabs, rock erosion and making homemade Irn-Bru cocktails.
Deep in the Scottish Highlands, Ramona falls for Jimmy’s awkward charm but gets caught in a scandal that will haunt her for years to come.
Fast forward fifteen years and Jim, of the shittest village in Scotland, has got a girlfriend and something like a functional life. But Ramona still can’t shake the consequences of that fateful trip. Determined to clear her conscience, she heads back to the Highlands to find that neither her nor Jim’s lives have turned out how they had planned.
Ramona Tells Jim is a darkly comic play about confession and the gravity of young love, from Bush Theatre Emerging Writers’ Group member and actor Sophie Wu (Kick Ass, Wild Child).
Coming with a university or school? Download the Ramona Tells Jim Education Pack.
Carolina is Co-Artistic Director of Theatre O. She trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and at the Col.legi de Teatre in Barcelona. Her movement direction credits include: The Tempest (Donmar as Associate), Opera for an Unknown Woman (Wales Millenium Centre), The Brink (The Orange Tree), Treasure Island (National Theatre, as Creative Associate), Hamlet (RSC), Julius Caesar (Donmar, as Associate), Napoli
Millionaria (Central School of Speech and Drama); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Liverpool Playhouse); Absurdia (Donmar). Acting includes: Henry IV (Donmar), The Late Henry Moss (Southwark Playhouse), The Secret Agent (Theatre O), Julius Caesar (Donmar), The Thirteen Midnight Challenges of Angelus Diablo (RSC), Delirium (Theatre O at the Barbican/Abbey, Dublin); Casanova (Told By An Idiot at The Lyric
Hammersmith); Lindy’s Got a Gun (Enda Walsh at Trafalgar Studios); Astronaut (Theatre O at the Barbican); The Barber of Seville and Carmen (Opera 21); The Argument and 3 Dark Tales (Theatre O at the Barbican/international tour); Bond (Theatre O). Film includes: At The Threshold (Daria Martin), A Little Chaos (Alan Rickman), Call the Midwife (BBC). Directing includes: Reykjavik and The Garden (Shams); All Mapped Out (Gogolia); The Barber of Seville and Carmen (Opera 21).
Dominic Kennedy is a Sound Designer and Music Producer for performance and live events. He has a keen interest in developing new work and implementing sound and music at an early stage in a creative process. Dominic is a graduate from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama where he developed specialist skills in collaborative and devised theatre making, music composition and installation practices. His work often fuses found sound, field recordings, music composition and synthesis. Recent design credits include: With a Little bit of Luck (Paines Plough), Gap in the Light (Engineer), Broken Biscuits (Paines Plough), Growth (Paines Plough), Love, Lies and Taxidermy (Paines Plough), Dancing Bear, Dancing Bear (Gameshow), ONO (Jamie Wood), The Devil Speaks True (Goat & Monkey) and Run (Engineer).
Lucy Sierra’s recent design credits include: Ode to Leeds (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Macbeth (Dorfman, National Theatre & Schools Tour), Young Vic 5 (Young Vic) Cathy (Cardboard Citizens Tour), The Grand Journey, (Bombay Sapphire Immersive Experience), A Kid, This Tuesday (Arcola), The Tempest (Royal & Derngate), Giving, (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs); Another World, Losing Our Children to Islamic State (Shed, National Theatre); Calculating Kindness (Camden People’s Theatre); Snow White & Rose Red (Rash Dash & Cambridge Arts Theatre); Abyss (Arcola); Benefit, We Are All Misfits (Cardboard Citizens Tour); We Have Fallen (Underbelly); If You Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep (Royal Court); Sign of The Times (Theatre Royal Bury); The Bear (Improbable Tour); Sweeney Todd, David Copperfield, White Nights (Octagon Bolton); Symmetry (Southwark Playhouse); Songs Inside (Gate); Fewer Emergencies (Oxford Playhouse).
Mel Hillyard won the JP Morgan Award for directing in 2015 and spent 6 months at the National Theatre Studio as Resident Director. Her directing credits include Scarlett (Hampstead Theatre), The Brink (Orange Tree Theatre), The Late Henry Moss (Southwark Playhouse), Love and Information (The Caird Theatre), Hamlet (The Secret Nuclear Bunker – East 15), Hard Shoulders (Latitude Festival), Even Stillness Breathes Softly Against a Brick Wall (Theatre503), In An Instant (Latitude Festival and Theatre503), His Face Her Face, Three Is Company (King’s Head), Loose Ends (Edinburgh Festival). She has also acted as Associate, Assistant or Staff Director at the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, West End, Hampstead Theatre and Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
Sophie is a well-known actress and a writer for screen and stage. Her debut play, Sophie Wu Is Minging, and Looks Like She’s Dead, premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and transferred to the Soho Theatre. Sophie is developing an original TV project with Charlie Brooker’s company, House of Tomorrow, and is a graduate of the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers’ Group.
