Your pain's your own; mine's a parade…
Canaan and his son have come a long way to escape the horrors of Zimbabwe under Mugabe. But now, as their legal status in Britain hangs in the balance, Canaan is forced to fight for their lives for a second time.
When case worker Martha asks him to revisit his darkest memories, they both find that truth is never a simple story.
In this lyrical play about identity and transformation, African folklore meets urban landscape to explore the difficulty of trauma and memory, and how lives can hang on the telling of a good story.
Re-opening the Playhouse Studio, this world première of Lizzie Nunnery’s The Swallowing Dark is a psychological thriller that combines devastating power with the telling of a good story.
A Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and Theatre 503 production
Company
Cast Allyson Ava-Brown & Wil Johnson
Writer Lizzie Nunnery
Director Paul Robinson
Designer Alex Eales
Lighting Designer Richard Howell
Projection & Video Design Louise Rhodes-Brown for Knifedge
Composer Peter Coyte
Sound Designer & Video Programmer Xenia Bayer
Costume Supervisor Jacquie Davies
Dialect Coach Claudette Williams
Movement Coach Bernadette Iglich
Casting Director Annie Rowe
Reviews
The Swallowing Dark
★★★★
“One still suspects that Nunnery has larger plays bubbling up inside her”
The Guardian