Following their hugely successful touring productions of Plastic Figurines and Chip Shop Chips, Manchester-based theatre company Box of Tricks will open their 2017 tour of Narvik, their critically acclaimed new play by award-winning playwright Lizzie Nunnery, at HOME between Tuesday 31 January – Saturday 4 February 2017.
Narvik is inspired by tales from naval veterans and stories from Nunnery’s grandfather’s time in the Royal Navy, telling a powerful story of love, guilt, heroism and betrayal to a backdrop of the Second World War as a Liverpudlian man and a Norwegian woman are pulled together and torn apart by war.
Award winning playright and singer-songwriter Lizzie Nunnery explores her dual creative strands – writer, and singer/songwriter – to conjure a play where music and words meet, creating a patchwork of memory and dream, truth and fantasy.
The production is directed by Box of Tricks’ Joint Artistic Director and co-founder, Manchester-based Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder, designed by award-winning designer Katie Scott (shortlisted for this year’s Old Vic 12) and features original music and songs by Vidar Norheim, Martin Heslop and Lizzie Nunnery
Clearly excited following Narvik’s successful Liverpool debut, Nunnery commented, “Following the success of the premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse in 2015, I can’t wait for Narvik to tour to a wider audience. It’s been great to build on the experience of the debut run, developing and shaping the script and music further – putting together an even more exciting version of the show to take out nationwide. I’m so proud of the production team and cast for taking the kernel of an idea and turning it in to an epic tale of love and war. The story is fictionalised from true stories of Second World War sailors, including some told to me by my granddad, but from the start Hannah [Tyrrell-Pinder] and I wanted to do much more than present history on stage. Through the music and physicality, the storytelling enters strange dreamlike places where memory, imagination and truth collide, creating an intense and immersive show. It’ll be exciting to see how different audiences respond to it from Keswick to London.”
The cast features Liverpool-based Joe Shipman (Ten Tiny Toes and The Way Home, Liverpool Everyman), Hulme-based Lucas Smith (Doctor Faustus, Royal Exchange; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Hallé) and Londoner Nina Yndis (Norwegian feature film Glassdukkene and Peaky Blinders).
To celebrate the release of the EP of original music from Narvik, playwright Lizzie Nunnery will be performing music from the production and her previous albums alongside collaborators Martin Heslop and Vidar Norheim at Home on Wednesday 1 February.
Narvik runs at Home from 31 January – 4 February 2017. Tickets £12 (concessions £10).
Narvik – image by Alex Mead and Decoy Media
