Led by David Hamblett and Judy Reaves, Hambletts specialise in producing exciting new projects, taking them to unusual spaces and creating new audiences. We produce Words & Music theatrical presentations and plays, touring the UK, from no 1 venues to small halls, for one-nighters and short runs.
We aim to appeal to both the concert and theatre audience - with a cross-genre approach to venues, ranging from theatre, concert hall and outdoors (Stonehenge!) - highlighting great authors and stories, brought to life through storytelling, performed by wonderful actors and musicians.
We work with the brilliant adapter and writer, Deirdre Shields. Deirdre has a great skill of telling the writers' stories in their own words - sometimes from their novels and poetry, sometimes letters and journals.
We select actors who are expert at storytelling to bring these words and characters to life - including Anton Lesser, Harriet Walter, Hermione Norris, Sally Phillips, Sunny Ormonde, Adjoa Andoh.
Dazzling music scores, with arrangements by the onstage Orchestra of the Swan, weave around these words.
"...we have created a new genre of performance whereby words and music weave together to mutually enhance each other. We aim to shine a light on great writers' lives by using their own words - from novels, poetry, journals, letters and plays - to tell their story and to lift the veil of preconception."
Judy Reaves
Red Sky at Sunrise has been touring for one-night performances and short runs since its first theatre premiere in May 2023, when we sold out the RSC’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Since then, the production has sold out Oxford Playhouse, Salisbury International Arts Festival (Playhouse), Saffron Hall, Wilton's Music Hall, Buxton Opera House, Painswick Rococo Garden and others. We were featured on R4's Today (with Mishal Hussain), R3's In Tune, Times Radio, 6Music and were delighted to receive a wonderful '5 mice' review from Libby Purves.
Anton Lesser says: ‘Words and Music is a kind of unique genre, neither pure reading, nor acting, but with an immediacy that comes from the huge emotional impact the music has upon the words, and vice versa, and the interplay we as actors enjoy with the musicians on-stage. Quite simply, it’s the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done!’
Touring productions for 2025, with the same creative team:
Check out our WHAT'S ON page for dates.