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A new play by Joe Penhall (2000). Directed by Roger Michell. Designed by William Dudley. Lighting by Rick Fisher. Sound by Neil Alexander.

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In a London mental hospital, an enigmatic patient claims to be the son of an exiled African dictator. As the drama unfolds, his story becomes unnervingly plausible.

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln, Bill Nighy

Joe Penhall's first play for the National is an incendiary tale about race, madness and a Darwinian power struggle at the heart of a dying NHS. His previous work includes Some Voices and Pale Horse (both Royal Court), Love and Understanding (Bush) and The Bullet (Donmar).

Director Roger Michell's last production at the National was The Homecoming. Other work includes the film Notting Hill, My Night with Reg (Royal Court and West End), The Buddha of Suburbia and Persuasion (both BBC).

Bill Nighy's work for the National includes Skylight, The Seagull and Arcadia.

This production played in repertory at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre: Previewed 7 April, Opened 13 April 2000, Closed 23 August 2000

On 11 October 2000: It is rumoured that Blue/Orange will return to the West End in March 2001 at the Duchess Theatre.
On 27 November 2000: Won the 2000 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for 'Best New Play'
On 1 December 2000: Blue/Orange is EXPECTED to at the Duchess Theatre with performances from 30 April 2001 with the original cast.
On 15 February 2001: Won the 2000 Critics' Circle for 'Best New Play'.
On 23 February 2001: Blue/Orange wins the 2001 Olivier Award for 'Best New Play'.
On 27 February 2001: The Duchess Theatre run has now finally opened for booking - the production will be presented 'in-the-round' and now that the seating layout has been confirmed booking has now opened. The original cast of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Bill Nighy will be transferring with the play.

On 10 July 2001: A new booking period covering performances from 20 August 2001 to 5 January 2002 was announced. The current cast of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Bill Nighy will be replaced by a new cast - David Threlfall, Neil Stuke and Shaun Parkes - from Monday 20 August 2001. From 12 September 2001 there will also be a completely new performance schedule - evening performances will start 30 minutes earlier at 7.30pm while the times and days of the matinee performances will also change.

On 21 November 2001: It was announced that Blue/Orange will closing on 15 December 2001 - three weeks short of the end of its current booking period - after a run of 7½ months at the Duchess Theatre.

COTTESLOE Theatre (National Theatre): Previewed 7 April, Opened 13 April 2000, Closed 23 August 2000 transferred to
DUCHESS Theatre: Previewed 24 April, Opened 30 April 2001, Closed 15 December 2001

Extracts from the reviews (Duchess Theatre with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Bill Nighy):

"A year after electrifying audiences at the National Theatre, Joe Penhall's riveting, award-winning play about schizophrenia and rival psychiatrists has crossed the river. Roger Michell's superb production has retained not only its original cast but also its original edge... William Dudley's diamond-shaped arena has been transposed to the Duchess with only a slight loss of the cockpit atmosphere at the National. Some of the audience sit beyond the actors, who play 'in the round'. But the performances are as compelling and extraordinary as ever... You will argue into the night about the play, and possibly the curious, wound-up freneticism of the acting. But you will have had a unique experience and superb entertainment." The Daily Mail

"...Penhall has the rare gift of engaging both emotion and intellect and making you care desperately about the outcome. Roger Michell's in-the-round production transfers physically very well to the transformed Duchess, but two of the performances have become dangerously hyperactive in the move. Instead of allowing Robert's cool upper-class assurance gradually to disintegrate, Bill Nighy now gives us an assemblage of nervous tics, including spinning on his heel, puffing out his cheeks and running his hands through his hair. And Andrew Lincoln's Bruce also falls victim to the American belief that restless movement and staccato speech equal dramatic energy. The text is strong enough to allow both actors to calm down a little and let the words do more of the work. Fortunately, Chiwetel Ejiofor's Christopher has lost none of the controlled intensity he had at the National..." The Guardian

"...Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange, the most exciting new play of last year, has arrived, from the National Theatre, at the Duchess, every bit as "now" as Feelgood in its feelbad, shocking, brilliant way... The give-and-take between these three actors is exceptional; I would guess that each performance is quite different. Just in terms of its brilliant range and control of dynamics, Blue/Orange is superb drama. You are sustained by the energy and skill of the actors and Penhall's dialogue from first to last, and you attend with your heart in your mouth." The Financial Times

"...Penhall negotiates the potentially explosive subject-matter with the seriousness that has characterised all his work; but he also relishes the absurdity of a situation driven as much by self-interest as noble intention. The dialogue - breathy, wheedling, jargon-crammed - is often immensely funny. Roger Michell's production could do with letting the writing work its own charms. The actors prowl round a sterile raised platform, unable to sit still for a moment. The movement suits the play's quasi-mathematical plotting, the way it runs through a matrix of attitudes, but it can be distractingly busy... Minor cavils aside, this will most likely prove to be the best play of the year, again." The Daily Telegraph

Extracts from the reviews (Cottesloe Theatre with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Bill Nighy):

"Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange is not only the National Theatre's first seriously good new play since the premiere of Michael Frayn's Copenhagen two years ago. It is also - as far as I am qualified to judge - Britain's best new play since then. Its premise - the intersection of abnormal psychology and racial minority - seems to me thrillingly original, and it develops in other equally thrilling directions... Penhall is not only remarkably acute on the workings of abnormal psychology and of professional psychiatrists, he also has a wonderfully keen sense of the basic psychological make-up of each characters and the relationships they form with each other... Roger Michell directs to perfection, bringing out its suspense and rhythm and urgency to superb effect. The economy of William Dudley's designs heightens the whole play... A most riveting production of a most moving, exciting play." The Financial Times

"...To say that Penhall does less than justice to his theme, however, would be an understatement. At first the play is both entertaining and provocative but, as the action develops, it seems increasingly meretricious and implausible, with rational debate sacrificed to hysterical melodrama. Far from illuminating a difficult subject, Penhall seems to be hitching a cheap theatrical ride on it, which is distressing since he is a fine young dramatist who has written with great sensitivity about mental illness in the past... The piece speedily degenerates into an implausible power struggle between the doctors, in which the patient is reduced to the status of understandably bewildered onlooker. It's a drama that generates great heat and precious little light, and there is something deeply offensive about watching such a sensitive and harrowing subject being hijacked in the name of entertainment. Director Roger Michell can't disguise how absurd the narrative becomes, but his production is as compelling, and as morally dubious, as a bare-knuckle fight. Bill Nighy is outstanding as the power-mad senior shrink, moving from apparent affability to ferocious megalomaniac menace, and there is strong support from Andrew Lincoln as his alarmed junior and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the confused, engaging but increasingly peripheral patient. But it is sad to see Penhall betraying both his subject matter and his great talent. Blue/Orange is yet another symptom of the National's disastrous inability to distinguish good new writing from bad." The Daily Telegraph

"...Blue/Orange turns out to be a full-scale contest, a battle of minds, in which a consultant psychiatrist and his young registrar, passionately slug it out in argument over whether to release the young African, Christopher, who has been hospitalised with symptoms apparently bordering on the psychotic. This case rings alarm bells. It relates to public concern about schizophrenics and other sorts of deranged people who have murdered or attacked strangers after being released to so-called care in the community. How do psychiatrists assess who should be freed and on what basis of certainty? Blue/Orange does not directly answer such questions. Penhall contrasts the necessarily unscientific methods of two white shrinks struggling to understand a black man from a different culture. A discomforting comedy, streaked with excitement and emotion, is created in Roger Michell's stylish production. Interest teeters on a knife edge of suspense: until the final scenes of irritating caricature when the psychiatrists lose their professional balance and cool, with the furious registrar virtually breaking down and the consultant exulting in his power, Penhall scrupulously gives both men a case. The state of Christopher's mind remains mistily unclear. The audience plays the role of umpire. Bill Nighy's hip and sympathetic, Laingian-inspired consultant is eager to save Christopher from being institutionalised and to prevent any black man's symptoms of alienation and loneliness from being diagnosed as psychoses. Andrew Lincoln's obstinate registrar wants to keep Christopher hospitalised to protect him from himself. Penhall's ironic conclusion leaves you brooding." The London Evening Standard

"Here's a conundrum. You're invited into a room in which two men are railing, raging and slagging each other off. What are they: football hooligans, bouncers, new Labour spin-doctors? No, the answer given by Joe Penhall's lively play is that they are psychiatrists and the intruder is a needy patient. The very thought of shrinks makes people feel insecure, which is presumably why a National Theatre audience laughed so heartily to see their eccentricities and inadequacies exposed. Mark you, that's also what's wrong with the play. Faced with Chiwetel Ejiofor's Christopher, a black man diagnosed as "on the border between neurosis and psychosis", would a consultant and his junior treat him with so little guile and professionalism?... Penhall's demolition job on the shrinks is too extreme, but, with a twitching, smiling Nighy bent double in his patronising attempts not to be patronising, it is often very funny. Moreover, the play makes a serious point. What's to happen to the likes of Ejiofor's brilliantly played Christopher, who has been victimised, lives in a sink estate, and is so lonely he takes long walks round the Hanger Lane gyratory system? Maybe his belief that he's an illegitimate son of Idi Amin, who would be happier in Africa, or the menacing voices he hears, or his manic mood-swings mean there's something wrong with us, not him. But when even the shrinks need shrinking, who can help?" The Times