Paul is trying to find a job. Snowy is trying to find himself. Instead, they find Sandy:
A gigantic cow on the verge of death.
Award-winning UK playwright Simon Longman’s hilarious, poignant tragicomedy MILKED makes its Australian premiere at fortyfivedownstairs in March 2024, presented by The Ninth Floor Productions.
Acclaimed director Iain Sinclair (The View From The Bridge, Berlin) directs Laurence Boxhall (The Mousetrap 70th Anniversary Tour, Shakespeare In Love) and William McKenna (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Admissions) as Snowy and Paul respectively, two childhood friends in rural Herefordshire trying to find their meaning in life as the scales of fate tip slowly out of their favour.
Like the grass-stained lovechild of ‘Withnail and I’ and ‘Banshees of Inisherin’, ‘Milked’ bristles with energy while exploring friendship, purpose, loneliness, and rural-angst. Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving, Longman’s play is for anyone who has ever felt that time is unfairly passing them by, or wondered why it seems that everyone else is doing so much better in life.
Sinclair explains “When Laurence Boxhall introduced me to Simon Longman I was deeply captivated by his ability to capture a special quality of restless uncertainty in early adulthood as it is experienced now. It’s a new kind of hell out there for young adults and in this case especially so for young men living away from the metropolitan centre in the middle of the meaning crisis. This play deftly captures it.
This play is a welcome return to what contemporary playwriting does best, exploring uncertainty and paradox. It feels real and surreal at the same time, hilarious and sad, frustrating and satisfying and foolish but serious. I find it profoundly moving and tender with a deep sense of the kind of dark existential comedy you might discover in Beckett, Pinter or even The Goons.
Just like Beckett and Pinter’s work, this is the kind of play that can only function with top flight actors capable of embracing paradox and I have been blessed with two of the country’s most match fit in William McKenna and Laurence Boxhall.”
The creative team includes fifteen-time Green Room Award nominee and five-time winner Richard Vabre (Lighting Design), along with Kirsty O’Connor (Assistant Director), Louisa Fitzgerald (Set and Costume Design) and Lyndall Grant (Fight Choreographer).
REVIEWS FROM THE U.K. PRODUCTION
‘Laugh out loud’ ‘truthful and pertinent’ ‘an excellent piece of new writing’ ‘Milked won’t disappoint’ – Entertainment Focus, UK
‘Milked delivers’ ‘Funny, truthful and tightly-written, Milked is an understated piece of theatre that speaks loudly.‘ – British Theatre Guide, UK
‘Impressive and powerful…deals with very current issues’ ‘Pushes all the right buttons’ ‘…a wonderful mix of sadness and comedy’ 4/5 Stars – Everything Theatre, UK
MILKED
By Simon Longman
Directed by Iain Sinclair
Venue: fortyfivedownstairs theatre, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Previews: 28th & 29th February
Opening Night: 1st March
Season: 1st March – 10th March 2024
Bookings: 03 9662 9966 | fortyfivedownstairs.com
The Ninth Floor has been rehearsing on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung and Bunurong/Boon Wurrung people, and pay our respects to Elders Past and Present.
MILKED – CAST & CREATIVES:
WILLIAM McKENNA
William McKenna is an actor who starred as Ed Kennedy in The Messenger for Lingo Pictures, which premiered on the ABC in 2023. He also starred in BBC’s Queen of Oz, series 3 and 4 of Nowhere Boys for Matchbox Pictures. And can be seen in the upcoming Thou Shalt Not Steal directed by Dylan River.
In 2019 to 2020, William starred as Scorpius Malfoy in the Australian production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which he was nominated for a Helpmann Award for ‘Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play’ and won the Green Room Award for ‘Best Performance in a Theatre Production.’ He has starred in Melbourne Theatre Company’s Admissions as Charlie Luther Mason opposite Kat Stewart in 2022 and Bernhardt/Hamlet as Maurice Bernhardt directed by Anne-Louise Sarks in 2023.
William performed and wrote his first solo comedy play as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Town Hall called Appellation. For which he was nominated for ‘Best Newcomer’ at the MICF awards.
He was the winner of the 2015 MICF ‘Class Clowns’ nationwide competition. He came back to host the 2016 National Final. He performed and hosted his own season of live shows as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2016 and 2017 at the Arts Centre.
William was awarded the Casting Guild of Australia ‘Rising Star Award’ for 2023.
LAURENCE BOXHALL
A NIDA graduate, Laurence was most recently seen touring nationwide as Christopher Wren in the 70th Anniversary Tour of The Mousetrap, for which he received critical acclaim. Other stage work includes Silvius in As You Like It and Sam in Shakespeare In Love, both directed by Simon Phillips for Melbourne Theatre Company. He made his professional stage debut in Jumpy, directed by Pamela Rabe in a co-production with Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company. His other stage work includes Lysander/Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Australian Shakespeare Company, Chadwick Meade in Punk Rock for Patalog Theatre, and Vladimir in Waiting for Godot whilst in his final year at NIDA.
Laurence was the Gen Z captain in Nine’s popular Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation with Shaun Micallef, Andy Lee, and Robyn Butler. Other screen credits include Daniel in Ronny Chieng: International Student for the ABC, Corey in Neighbours for 10, Jimmy Paradise in Deadline Gallipoli for Foxtel, Elder Morton in the feature Spirit of the Game, Simon Birch in Worst Year Of My Life…Again for the ABC/BBC, and Arnold in Ben Ulm’s multi-award winning short film Love, and Other Mental Disorders, for which Laurence won Best Lead Actor at the 2021 LA Independent Film Festival.
Laurence is also an award-winning audiobook narrator, having narrated 30+ audiobooks, and is a skilled magician. Post Milked, he will be seen co-starring opposite Toni Scanlon in the thriller Switzerland by Joanna Murray Smith for Ensemble Theatre in Sydney.
DIRECTOR: IAIN SINCLAIR
Iain is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and King’s College London’s Masters program in Text and Performance Studies. Recent work includes: The Caretaker by Harold Pinter and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for The Ensemble, All My Sons by Arthur Miller (which opened the new Eternity Theatre in Sydney), The Beast by Eddie Perfect, A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller and Berlin by Joanna Murray Smith for Melbourne Theatre Company, Mojo, Our Town and Blood Wedding for Sydney Theatre Company, The Seed by Kate Mulvany, Killer Joe by Tracey Letts, My Arm by Tim Crouch, Beyond the Neck by Tom Holloway for Belvoir, and Hurlyburly by David Rabe and Lord of the Flies by William Goldman for The Stables. Other work includes One Scientific Mystery or: Why Did The Aborigines Eat Captain Cook?, Of Mice and Men, The Highway Crossing, The Pork Stiletto with Allsop and Henderson, Rope, One Long Night in the Land of Nod and many other new and classic works.
He has won three Sydney Theatre Awards, including for his premiere of The Seed by Kate Mulvany, was nominated for Best Director at the Sydney Theatre Awards in 2023 for The Caretaker, was awarded the 2020 Green Room for Best Direction for A View from the Bridge, and won a further four Canberra Critics Circle awards. He is the Head of Acting at 16th Street Actors Studio.
PLAYWRIGHT: SIMON LONGMAN
Simon Longman is a playwright from the West Midlands, England. He is the recipient of the 49th George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright and has previously won the Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme for his debut play; Milked. His work has been translated and produced all across the world. His plays include (Circle Dreams Around) The Terrible Terrible Past for The National Theatre, Patient Light for Eastern Angles, Island Town for Paines Plough, Gundog for the Royal Court, Rails for Theatre By The Lake, White Sky at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama as well as the Royal Court, Sparks at the Old Red Lion, and Milked for Pentabus.
He is an Associate at Kestrel Theatre Company, working in prisons around the UK, as well as being a lecturer at Bath Spa University.
THE NINTH FLOOR PRODUCTIONS
The Ninth Floor is a Naarm/Melbourne based theatre company founded in 2023 by artistic director Laurence Boxhall. With an eye on staging works otherwise unseen in contemporary Australian theatre, The Ninth Floor’s mission is to produce evocative productions that unravel our common threads in ways not commonly seen, while being backed by honest collaboration between artists both emerging and established. The Australian premiere of Milked is The Ninth Floor’s debut production.
