The Garrick Theatre in Guildford is staging an production of Hansard, the critically acclaimed play by Simon Woods.
The production is directed by Barry Park and starring Grant Malcolm and Suzannah Churchman, and will run for a strictly limited season from 25th September to 11 October.
Park has a had a long run of bringing queer themed plays to Perth’s community theatre space with previous productions including The Boys in the Band, August: Osage County, The Lisbon Traviata, The Normal Heart, French Without Tears, The York Realist and Beautiful Thing.
Premiering at London’s National Theatre in 2019, this biting, brilliant play was met with wide critical acclaim. The original London production starred Alex Jennings and Lindsay Duncan.
Hansard is described as razor-sharp British satire at its finest, a darkly funny two-hander that exposes the emotional fallout of privilege, repression, and political inaction.
Set in 1988, during the UK government’s deliberate silence on the AIDS crisis and the introduction of Section 28—a law that prohibited schools from ‘promoting’ homosexuality or acknowledging same-sex families—Hansard confronts themes of queerness, shame, denial, and emotional erasure with biting honesty.
The play is one that resonates deeply with queer audiences through its exploration of identity, silence, and the cost of societal and familial rejection.
Robin, a well-spoken Conservative MP, returns to his idyllic Cotswolds home expecting the usual evening of dry wit and verbal sparring with his wife, Diana. But tonight, something’s different. Diana’s frustration simmers dangerously close to the surface, and their usual games of clever debate spiral into something much more raw and revealing.
What begins as an intellectual tennis match—full of irony, sarcasm, and deliciously acerbic humour—quickly unravels into a fierce reckoning with the past. At the heart of their fractured marriage is a silence they can no longer maintain: the unspoken pain surrounding their absent son.
The story’s emotional centre—Robin and Diana’s unspoken awareness of their son’s sexuality—emerges slowly but powerfully, exposing the devastating collision of love, ideology, and loss.
The production runs for 90 minutes with no interval and contains adult themes and strong language. Tickets are on sale now.
