The Time Of Your Life

Wednesday, 26 November 2008 - Saturday, 20 December 2008
Times : 15:00 - 17:00 19:30 - 21:30

Finborough Theatre, Finborough Arms, Fulham, SW10 9ED

How Much: £13.00 (Tickets) , £9.00 (Concessions)

Celebrating the centenary of American playwright William Saroyan, the chronicler par excellence of American society in the Depression and post-war years, the Finborough have assembled their largest ever cast for this lavish production of his Pulitzer Prize-winning bar-room saga The Time Of Your Life.

Set in San Francisco, in 1939 on the eve of the Second World war, the play follows bartender Nick as he tries to keep his menagerie of strange and dangerous customers happy. Into this alcohol-sodden world strolls Kitty Duvall. She may be an internationally renowned burlesque dancer, but there's also every chance she's a two-bit whore.

Saroyan had a note-perfect ear for dialogue and a passionate but unusual take on the American dream; he was of Armenian descent and therefore more 'excluded' than contemporaries like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. This play, with a huge assortment of convincing characters, has been adapted for film and TV several times and is considered a modern American classic. It's a nightmare to stage but the team assembled under director Max Lewendell have every chance - after all, they know a thing or two about bar-room atmosphere at the Finborough. It's a pub.