Firebrand Theatre Company present the Scottish Premiere of THE MATCH BOX by Frank McGuinness

The award-winning Scottish Borders theatre company will be touring Scotland in February 2018.

with the Scottish premiere of Frank McGuinness' compelling play, The Match Box. The production opens at The Byre Theatre, St Andrews with a preview on Thursday 1 February 2018 and finishes on Saturday 3 February prior to a short tour which includes Birnam Arts, Heart of Hawick, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow.

Richard Baron directs this new production of the monologue, written by the celebrated Irish Tony Award winning playwright, Frank McGuinness in 2012, which combines lyricism and humour in a passionate story of grief, revenge and the temptations of evil.

The play explores the ties that bind and the shockingly brutal events that bring Sal to a remote exile on Valentia Island off the coast of County Kerry. McGuinness has created an intriguing heroine, a woman to be pitied and feared in equal measure. Her intriguing story begs only one question of the audience; what would you do if pushed to the very edge?

Following the success of last year's acclaimed production of Grounded, Firebrand have again joined forces with The Byre Theatre, St Andrews and Heart of Hawick to bring this production to Scottish audiences.

Director Richard Baron on The Match Box: "It is a complete encounter with grief and the will to forgive, with powerful resonances of recent Scottish news stories about gang-related shootings. With superb storytelling skill, McGuinness's atmospheric revenge drama uses surprising humour, and in?uences ranging from Samuel Beckett to Greek tragedy, to dig fearlessly into the ?esh and sinew of such an event, posing awkward questions about public, mass media, and private reactions to the concept of vengeance."

After her acclaimed performance in Grounded, at The Byre Theatre, this new production features actor Janet Coulson as Sal and the creative team is comprised of award-winning director Richard Baron, designer Ken Harrison and composer Jon Beales, whose successes with Firebrand include the sell-out tour of Rona Munro's Iron, which starred the CATS Award winning Blythe Duff; the revival of David Greig's Outlying Islands and the Scottish premiere of Lucy Prebble's The Effect.

Liam Sinclair, Artistic Director of The Byre Theatre: "We are uniquely placed, at The Byre, to be able to play such a substantial role in the creation of touring productions for theatre in Scotland and beyond. Our involvement with Fringe First award winning Stand By in the summer of 2017 set a precedent which we are delighted to follow up with Firebrand's latest production, which may be small in scale, but is huge in its ambition and power. This second-ever UK production of The Match Box ?ts perfectly with Firebrand's mission to make intimate, emotionally charged theatre with epic themes, and will further endorse The Times recent claim that "Firebrand, the company based in the Borders, has the knack for identifying new plays destined to become contemporary classics."

Sophy Delavigne, Operations Manager at Heart of Hawick: "We are delighted to welcome back Firebrand to the Heart of Hawick Theatre. It's wonderful to be able to host such an innovative theatre company and we look forward to what is sure to be another powerful production."

www.firebrandtheatre.co.uk

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