About the Play:

Winner of the 2003 Olivier Award for Best Play

Vincent in Brixton is a full-length drama by Nicholas Wright. The young artist Vincent van Gogh rents a room from, and falls in love with, an older widow in 1873 London – a hit in the West End and on Broadway.

A moving portrait of the young Vincent Van Gogh, Vincent in Brixton is set in 1873 in the London suburb of Brixton. A brash young Dutchman rents a room in the house of an English widow while he was being groomed for a career as an art dealer in his family's business. Three years later he returns to Europe on the first step of a journey which will end in breakdown, death and immortality. This heralded play produced traces the transforming effects of love, sex and youthful adventure on Vincent Van Gogh's still unformed talent, portraying him as he might have been and supposing a poignant affair with his landlady that might have happened.

Vincent in Brixton was first staged in 2002 at the National Theatre in London, winning rave reviews and the Olivier Award for Best Play. The West End production was subsequently seen on Broadway at Lincoln Center.

Cast: 3 female, 2 male

What people say:

"This is Nicholas Wright's best play, and one of the best new plays ever presented by the National Theatre." — The Sunday Times (London)

"A fascinating, funny and deeply moving portrait." — Daily Telegraph (London)

"Wright's excellent play about Van Gogh's early years in London not only avoids the usual lust-for-liferybut offers a wholly believable portrait of the disruptive nature of artistic talent." — The Guardian (London)

"Deeply moving." — Financial Times (London)

"Fascinating, funny and sometimes deeply moving ... Van Gogh would surely have recognized Wright's compelling theatrical portrait." — Financial Times (London)

"Nicholas Wright has convincingly imagined himself into the life of the 20-year-old Vincent van Gogh... superlative... An evening to savour." — The Evening Standard (London)

"Beguiling... Wright's fact based fiction transports us with its acute sensitivity to the shifting chemistries between two unlikely, troubled, intelligent soul mates... It is always beautiful." — Newsday (New York)

"Sweetly done [with] magical moments." — New York Post

"A haunting study in melancholy...rich with in the moment authenticity." — The New York Times

About the Playwright:

Nicholas Wright is a South African-born British dramatist who started in the theatre as a child actor. He went to England to train at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and joined the Old Vic touring company as an actor. After working in repertory he became an assistant director in films and television. In 1969 he founded the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs, where he was responsible for presenting a radically influential program of new plays. He is also the author of many plays, among them Mrs. Klein and Vincent in Brixton. He lives in London.