Local playwright Nick Wilkes has scored a stunning five-star success with his acclaimed play, When Vincent Met John. The play, which has been on tour nationally, has added dates at Malvern's own Coach House Theatre by popular demand, as part of their summer Ink & Curtain Festival, before heading to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

The two-person dramatic comedy explores the idea of a hypothetical meeting between Vincent van Gogh and John Lennon. Vincent died in 1890, John died in 1980, both of gunshot wounds to the chest, but imagine what might have happened, had the two greatest artists of their time met...

Set in an art gallery, which neither of these temperamental characters seem inclined to leave, these two artistic giants argue and debate art, love and loss from their own exceptionally different points of view.

To a hungover John, Vincent is yet another kook or oddball, wanting something from him and his celebrity. To Vincent, John is a colourful madman of interest and a great subject to draw. 

Via antagonism, interest, confidence, and confrontation they unwittingly help each other find a way forward from their current spiralling lives of neglect, lonliness and pain, to a place of bittersweet hope. 

Wilkes (who trained at the Bristol Old Vic and was the first Writer in Residence at Malvern Festival Theatre since George Bernard Shaw), spent several years researching his subjects, a project that has taken him to all four corners of the British Isles and beyond - from Strawberry Fields and the Cavern Club in Liverpool, to Vincent’s school in Ramsgate and the Dakota Building in New York city.

When Vincent Met John is appearing at the Coach House Theatre, Grange Road, Malvern for a strictly limited engagement, on Tuesday 28 July (7.30pm) and Wednesday 29 July (2.30pm & 7.30pm). For more information and to book tickets, visit the website.