Analogue Theatre to Bring STOWAWAY to HOME in Manchester This Spring

Award-winning Analogue Theatre will bring its highly acclaimed show STOWAWAY to HOME in Manchester, Thursday 5 - Saturday 7 May 2016. STOWAWAY tells a powerful story on the highly topical issue of migration in extreme circumstances.

A man from India risks life and limb to make a better life for himself in the West by hiding in the wheel-arch of a commercial airliner on its way to the UK, only for his frozen body to be found in the car park of a B&Q DIY store in a leafy outer London suburb.

Written and directed by Hannah Barker and Lewis Hetherington, and inspired by a number of real-life stories of bodies found along the flight paths of the South East's busy airports in similar circumstances, Stowaway, presented by Analogue Theatre, is the story of an extraordinary journey in search of an impossible future.

In researching the production, Barker and Hetherington undertook a trip to Chennai and Kolkata in India in 2012, where they took with them the newspaper article that inspired the show. Back in the UK, they met with refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants from all over the world, including second- or third- generation Pakistanis, Indians, Africans, and Syrians.

Every meeting offered them a new interpretation of the story, and raised important questions about the sensitivities of telling someone's story when they come from a world so different, questions that have become central to this production.

With the skeleton of a plane cutting across the stage, Stowaway flies back and forth through time and place, to present a compelling piece of physical theatre that looks at migration, globalisation, and storytelling as a political act.

"Stowaway is our attempt to tell a version of this story, inspired by some remarkable real-life accounts of migration," explains co-writer and co-director Hannah Barker. "We hope it might open a door for some vital conversations about shocking events of migration in desperate circumstances that continue to unfold all around us today, events that have sadly become ever more present in our consciousness since we started making this show."

Tickets for STOWAWAY are on sale now.

IF YOU GO:

STOWAWAY

At HOME, 2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester M15 4FN.

PERFORMANCE CALENDAR

Thursday 5 May 2016 19:30 Friday 6 May 2016 19:30 Saturday 7 May 2016 19:30

After the performance on Fri 6 May, and presented in association with CIDRAL at Manchester University, there will be a discussion between members of the company and professor Stephen Bottoms (Contemporary Theatre and Performance) and Dr Jonathan Darling (Senior Lecturer in Human Geography), both from Manchester University.

TICKETS

£18 - £10 (concessions available).

HOME, Manchester's centre for international contemporary art, theatre, film and books, opened its doors over the 2015 May Bank Holiday weekend. Designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo and featuring a 500-seat theatre, a 150-seat flexible theatre, a 500m2, 4m high gallery space, five cinema screens, digital production and broadcast facilities, a cafe? bar and restaurant, HOME's theatres are a platform for questioning and ambitious artistic projects that involve audiences with new and extraordinary theatrical experiences. The international contemporary visual art programme is dedicated to presenting new commissions by emerging and established artists of regional, national and international significance, with a bold, proactive policy of visual, innovative storytelling with the ability to experiment and explore, probe and provoke, creating a distinct experience for both artists and audiences. HOME's five cinemas showcase the very best in contemporary and classic cinema, screening works by artists and filmmakers both established and new. HOME is a centre for co-production, talent development and artistic creation, dedicated to learning, for people of all ages. A place for new work and playful ideas; of festivals and commissions; of artists and of audience engagement. The patrons of HOME are Danny Boyle, National Theatre Artistic Director Nicholas Hytner, actress Suranne Jones, playwright and poet Jackie Kay MBE, artists Rosa Barba and Phil Collins, filmmaker Asif Kapadia, and actress and

On Corporation Street, combining theatre, visual art and film in the second of a triptych of shows by ANU (with the other plays being performed in Dublin) marking the centenary of Ireland's Easter Rising and the 20th anniversary of the bombing of Manchester by the Provisional IRA; a new edition of ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Festival, with a cross-art programme for the first time ever featuring newly- commissioned theatre productions; a new HOME, Young Vic and Theatre de Ville production of The Emperor based on legendary journalist Ryszard Kapus?cin?ski's book, with the creative team behind critically acclaimed Kafka's Monkey including Kathryn Hunter, and directed by HOME Artistic Director: Theatre, Walter Meierjohann; A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, presented by HOME, Complicite Associates and the National Theatre, directed by Bryony Kimmings; HOME's 2016 International Guest Artist is Belgian dance collective Peeping Tom, who will introduce Olivier award-winning 32 rue Vandenbranden; Smoke and Mirrors by American company The Ricochet Project; a double bill from Manchester-based Eggs Collective and The Conker Group; Beyond Caring, presented by Alexander Zeldin and Company, a brutally honest, darkly humorous play exposing the stories of an invisible class.

ANALOGUE's award-winning work includes Mile End, Beachy Head, 2401 Objects, Lecture Notes on a Death Scene, and Re-Enactments. The company are associate artists of Farnham Maltings and Shoreditch Town Hall. Stowaway has been developed with the support of New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, the British Council, Arts Council England, Platform, National Theatre Studio, Traverse Theatre, Shoreditch Town Hall, PULSE Festival, and the Migrants Research Council. Stowaway was first made for a tour of venues in the South East in Autumn 2014. It has been further developed and tours the North East in Spring 2016 as part of REACH, the Strategic Touring initiative run by DEP Arts and ARC Stockon Arts Centre. Following REACH, the show visits venues around the UK, including Traverse Theatre, HOME, and Shoreditch Town Hall.

Photo Credit: Richard Davenport

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