THE SEQUEL
Matt Adcock (@Cleric20)
The Sequel is a new comedy-drama from emerging writer Lucas Closs that explores what happens when a novelist returns to the place she used as source material for her wildly successful novel, discovering herself both worshipped and cursed by the residents. The Sequel examines the impact of storytelling on real lives as characters are trapped by their own portrayals.
The production will be directed by Imy Wyatt Corner, who won a Fringe First in 2023 for her production of Mandi Chivasa’s BEASTS and the Charlie Harthill Award for her production of Maatin’s Duck. The Sequel follows the journey of novelist Grace “G.T.” Thoth, as she revisits the café where she wrote her first book, reconnecting with John, the person on whom she based the character of her iconic mentor. The production will feature a live musical score, adding texture and presence to the storytelling.
G.T’s coming-of-age book established her reputation as a distinctive literary voice and made the village she grew up in a destination for tourists. In the years since it was published, the café has become a small museum dedicated to her work, preserved by John- famed as the gardening poet of her novel but now a weathered tour guide. G.T is confronted with the impact her work has had on the area and its residents, as well as Martha, the cafe museum’s current owner, who resents the author for not putting her mum in the book.
‘Whatever you mentioned just became more of itself, whatever you left out, died.’
Meanwhile, John attempts to inspire Grace to write something new to revive interest in the area - and thereby bolster his livelihood.
Set within a rural community reshaped by literary notoriety and tourism, The Sequel explores authorship, ego and responsibility with dark humour. The play captures the pull of nostalgia, the desire to preserve a place exactly as it was and the compulsion to record and shape our experience into narrative. It also reveals the complications that arise when real lives become ‘material’; at the heart of the play lies the question of our relationship to others and the moral questions that arise when they become resources in our own creative progress. Directed by Imy Wyatt Corner and produced by Ella Dale, The Sequel marks Lucas Closs as an emerging writer to watch.
Listings information:
Venue: Kings Head Theatre, N1 1QP, London
Run: 20th April - 2nd May (Not Fridays) 9pm except Saturdays 8pm, Sundays at 4pm.
Running time: 75 mins no interval
Age guidance: 14+
Tickets from £18.50
https://kingsheadtheatre.com/
I had the chance to ask the writer Lucas some questions…
Matt:The play deals with nostalgia and preserving the past. Why do you think people are so drawn to revisiting places connected to stories?
Lucas: I think it’s to have a kind of immersive experience. To be in the story we feel a connection to and to fill in the gaps. This is the setting of the play- a cafe preserved in a novelist’s description of itself to attract the public and to honour the shared story it featured in. The novelist (played by Nisha Emich) returns here for nostalgia but instead faces the consequences of her recording. There is always a gulf between our expectations of these kinds of places and the reality that prevents the immersion we had hoped for.
Matt:The Sequel seems fascinated by the fallout of storytelling the way writing about a place can immortalise it but also distort it. What sparked the idea of exploring the “collateral damage” of a successful novel?
Lucas: I am particularly interested in the collateral damage of an inspiring life-story. We often hear inspiring stories of people’s backgrounds in public life- Grace’s novel is basically a memoir of her adolescence. I’m interested in where this places the character John (played by Jim Findley) who hasn’t left the remote area that Grace ‘rose out’ from, or the cafe manager, Martha, (played by Julia Pilkington) who’s recently returned to work there. Michael Sandel’s ‘The Tyranny of Merit’ thinks about the insults that can be implicit in these kinds of inspiring stories. Both the residents have a combination of worship and resentment towards Grace.
Matt:Grace returning to the café that inspired her book feels almost like a ghost returning to haunt the living. Did you see this play partly as a kind of literary haunting?
Lucas: That’s very interesting. I think for Grace it’s the other way round- she is ‘the living’ and everyone there are ‘ghosts’. I did have a Christmas Carol in mind with Grace as Scrooge confronting the unknown consequences of her past… maybe if I set it at Christmas, it could become a Christmas play performed annually across the nation!
Matt:One of the most striking ideas in the play is that people can become trapped by the way they’ve been written. Do you think that’s something that happens in real life that once someone tells a story about us, it can start to define who we are?
Lucas: I’m interested in how others see us can powerfully determine how we see ourselves- particularly in a digital media landscape.
The success of Grace’s novel means Grace’s perception of the residents becomes the public perception; I think this sort of power is quite daunting.
Matt:Writers writing about writers can sometimes become a hall of mirrors. What did writing Grace teach you about your own relationship with storytelling?
Lucas: I am interested more in how the relationship between how a writer takes material from their surroundings is not far off from how we can sometimes subtly extract from or neglect what’s around us for the sake of a story we’re attached to, rather than existing alongside what’s in front of us.
Matt:The play seems to explore how communities can become frozen in the mythology of a story. Do you think nostalgia is a creative force or a dangerous one?
Lucas: Nostalgia is a sort of lazy act of creation. Though many creative things come out of it, it can be dangerous when we chose it over making something new. The play looks at the consequences of this lethargy of creativity, particularly in John’s insistence at playing classic 80s songs.
Matt:John sounds like a fascinating character a man turned into a kind of literary relic by someone else’s book. Was he inspired by a particular archetype or real figure?
Lucas: Characters for me are always composites of lots of people- I was very entertained by learning about the hustle from the real George Jung (played by Johnny Depp) , Jordan Belford (Leonardo De Caprio) and Kenny Kramer (Michael Richards) following their depictions in Blow, The Wolf of Wallstreet and Seinfeld respectively, each using their depictions in these works for their own personal enterprises.
Matt:The Sequel is a deceptively simple title. Is the play about the sequel to a novel, the sequel to a life, or the sequel to a mistake?
Lucas: I like the idea that the play you will see is the theatrical version of Grace’s new novel which is about her life and the mistake of her debut. The live score from Deniz Dortok emphasises that what you’re seeing is dramatised and expresses the sense of cinema in which characters view their own lives.
Matt:If someone turned your life into a novel, what genre would it be and how would it end?
Lucas: It would be a Children’s Book where I become king as I realise everything that rhymes becomes true.
Matt: When audiences leave the theatre, what do you hope stays with them?
Lucas: The power of the stories we tell and the impact they have on reality.
The Sequel comes to Kings Head Theatre, London on Monday 20th April - Saturday 2nd May 2026. For more information visit: https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/the-sequel-5tbn
