Culture Secretary Leads a Cultural Delegation to Punchdrunk's SLEEP NO MORE in Shanghai

Last night Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, led a delegation from the UK's cultural industries to visit the McKinnon Hotel in Shanghai's Jing'An District. The Secretary of State for Culture addressed British and Chinese guests at a reception hosted by the British Council as part of the 4th UK-China High Level People-to-People Dialogue.

Felix Barrett, the Artistic Director of Punchdrunk, and Luke Ma, Vice President of SMG Live, spoke at last night's event about their international collaboration leading to rewarding cultural exchange. This award-winning company originally from the UK has presented its ground-breaking immersive theatre work around the globe for over 15 years. In an exciting co-production with SMG Live and Chinese artists, Punchdrunk have re-created SLEEP NO MORE in sumptuous cinematic detail, featuring new material and set in 1930s Shanghai. The original creative team have been working on the ground in Shanghai with their Chinese counterparts for several months. This combined with an exceptional level of resource and expertise provided by the Chinese producers, means that SLEEP NO MORE Shanghai achieves an unprecedented level of production values.

As she congratulated The Combined efforts of both companies Karen Bradley remarked "this Punchdrunk - SMG Live co-production is exactly the kind of long-term mutually beneficial cultural partnership that I hope will become a model of success in this golden era of UK-China cultural relations".

Felix Barrett also urged UK cultural counterparts attending the event to "find creative partnerships in China that can enable UK companies to make the most ambitious versions of their best work possible".

Home to Punchdrunk International's brand new production of their award-winning theatrical experience, SLEEP NO MORE, the McKinnon Hotel opens its doors to Chinese audiences on 14 December 2016. SLEEP NO MORE ushers audiences into a visceral, tactile and darkly cinematic telling of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Macbeth. The production has broken box office records in Shanghai, selling over 10,000 tickets in its first four days of sales. This new production of SLEEP NO MORE spans 5 floors of the vast, disused building which has been transformed into the McKinnon Hotel in the Jing'An district of central Shanghai and is the first immersive work of this scale to be performed in China.

The Culture Secretary's visit to China celebrates new cultural collaborations between the two countries, introducing the delegation from the UK's creative industries to senior cultural contacts in Shanghai as part of the 4th UK-China High Level People-to-People Dialogue. The delegation visiting Punchdrunk's McKinnon Hotel included Chief Executive of the British Council, Ciarán Devane; Chief Executive of the British Library, Roly Keating; Director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Michael Garvey; Director of Tate International, Judith Nesbitt; Chief Operating Officer of the Royal Opera House Sally O'Neill and Head of Wales Art International, Eluned Haf where they were joined by Dame Barbara Woodward, Ambassador to China, actor Dominic Cooper and a number of important Chinese figures from local arts organisations.

For more information visit www.punchdrunk.com.

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