Blood Wedding Q&A at the Omnibus Theatre

Multi-award-winning British playwright Barney Norris’ darkly comic reworking of Lorca’s 1932 Spanish classic Blood Wedding had its world premiere in 2020 at Salisbury Playhouse, near the real-life village hall where his version of the disastrous nuptials occurs. It now gets its London premiere at Clapham’s Omnibus Theatre.

In fact, the play predates that earlier run, having started life as a project for students Barney was teaching at LAMDA. One of those students, Kiefer Moriarty, now a professional actor, has accompanied this Blood Wedding through its various iterations, playing Lee (Leonardo in the original), the bride’s jilted ex whose undimmed love triggers the tragedy.

In Norris’ Blood Wedding, 22-year-old bride-to-be Georgie (Nell Williams) is torn between Lee, an Irish traveller now married to Georgie’s one-time schoolfriend Danni (Esme Lonsdale), and her younger school-leaver fiance Rob (Christopher Neenan, making his professional debut).

“You don’t get all that much say in life. It takes the course it wants.”

The quartet’s romantic woes are overseen by two older, wiser heads in the form of Rob’s divorcee mother Helen (Alix Dunmore) and widowed village hall caretaker Brian (David Fielder), whose clownish cameos in Act I give way to Lorca-inspired lunar poetry and profundity as the proceedings reach their inevitable climax.

The Two’s Company production is helmed by artistic director Tricia Thorns and designed by Alex Marker.

For the post-show discussion, I was joined by (left-right) Barney, Tricia and the full cast. Amongst the topics discussed: the creative journey, differences between Spanish and English sensibilities, wedding anecdotes, fate versus free will, and Barney’s musical project with Sting!

Blood Wedding runs at London’s Omnibus Theatre until 24 May 2025.

Q&A video

The post-show panel are: (left-right) playwright Barney Norris, director Tricia Thorns, and the cast members Alix Dunmore, Kiefer Moriarty, Christopher Neenan, Nell Williams, Esme Lonsdale and David Fielder. With thanks to Raymond Whitaker.

Q&A photos

With thanks to Eileen Goodway and Stephanie Ressort.

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