“A book of soaring merit: gripping, moving, illuminating and truthful.”
The Sunday Times on Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings

As the American War of Independence reaches its climax, a plantation slave and a British Naval Officer embark on an epic journey in search of freedom. Divided by barriers of race but united in their ambitions for equality, their convictions will change attitudes towards slavery forever.

Headlong Theatre’s Artistic Director Rupert Goold (Paradise Lost and Faustus for Headlong, The Tempest West End and Scaramouche Jones Liverpool Playhouse) directs a new adaptation of Simon Schama’s provocative bestseller by award-winning writer Caryl Phillips.

Sweeping from the deep south of America to the scorched earth of West Africa, Rough Crossings is a compelling true story that marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire.

Headlong Theatre Company, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Lyric Hammersmith present