Proto-type Theater’s latest production A Machine They’re Secretly Building comes to The Lowry for one night on 1 March as part of a national tour.

Taking inspiration from a quote by Edward Snowden, the company have combined original text and classified intelligence documents with film from digital artist Adam York Gregory, and music and sound design by Paul J. Rogers, to vent their frustration at the insidious machine of surveillance.

Written and directed by Andrew Westerside, the show which was commissioned by Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Warwick Arts Centre and hAb (Manchester),  charts a course from the ‘Top Secret’ secrets of WWI intelligence (via the moon, 1972’s Chess World Championships, a disco in Oklahoma and the cafeteria at CERN) through to 9/11, Edward Snowden’s revelations and the terror of a future that might already be upon us.

From what might be a news desk, an office, a bedroom, a bunker under a mountain or a theatre, two people – reporters, senators, freedom fighters, or just… well… concerned citizens think about what it is to speak up, speak out, blow the whistle and lift the veil…

A Machine They’re Secretly Building is performed at The Lowry on 1 March 2017.