Royal Lyceum Theatre Company to Premiere Karine Polwart's WIND RESISTANCE

The Royal Lyceum Theatre Company is delighted to announce that it is presenting the World Premiere of Scottish singer, songwriter and composer, Karine Polwart's new theatre gig, Wind Resistance, as part of the world renowned Edinburgh International Festival this August.

Wind Resistance is the first production that will feature The Lyceum's new Artistic Director, David Greig, (as Dramaturg) since his appointment and reunites Greig with site-specific theatre-maker, Wils Wilson. Their previous work together includes the hugely successful The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, the internationally acclaimed Scottish folk-theatre fable that has toured four continents and nine countries.

Wind Resistance will be performed in The Lyceum's 'Rehearsal Studio', a new, bespoke venue created in the theatre company's own rehearsal space to provide an intimate and unique setting for this fusion of music and theatre.

Every autumn, two and a half thousand pink-footed geese fly from Greenland to winter at Fala Flow, a protected peatbog south-east of Edinburgh. >From this windy plateau, Karine Polwart surveys the surrounding landscape through history, song, birdlore and personal memoir. Ideas of sanctuary, maternity, goose skeins, Scottish football legend and medieval medicine all take flight, in this compelling combination of story and song.

David Greig, Dramaturg on Wind Resistance and incoming Artistic Director at The Lyceum says:

"Karine is a mesmerising musician and singer but she's also an incredible storyteller. She can take us deep into ordinary lives, into nature, into history with a couple of well-turned lines. Wind Resistance is above all a wonderful piece of writing.

It's exciting to be able to showcase Karine's talents and explore and develop this new theatrical form in my first project as Artistic Director at The Lyceum, with the International Festival. I'm also very excited to open The Rehearsal Studio for this new Lyceum show and I look forward to welcoming and sharing this unique space with audience members."

Karine Polwart is a Scottish multi-award winning singer, songwriter and composer. She combines folk influences and myth with social/current observations on matters such as, Donald Trump's corporate megalomania, Charles Darwin's family life and the complexities of modern parenthood. She is four-times winner at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, twice for Best Original Song, her most recent album Traces (produced by Iain Cook of Chvrches) was shortlisted for both the Scottish Album of the Year Award and BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Album of the Year. The Guardian chose it as international folk-roots release of 2012. Her debut solo album Faultlines won Best Album at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards back in 2005, following six years of touring as a traditional Scots singer with Malinky and Battlefield Band.

David Greig is currently Artistic Director Designate of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Edinburgh. This role will expand to Artistic Director in June 2016. David was born in Edinburgh in 1969 and is an award winning, internationally renowned theatre maker. David co-founded Suspect Culture Theatre Company in 1990 and from 2005 to 2007 he was the first Dramaturg of The National Theatre of Scotland. Recent credits at The Lyceum include the critically acclaimed Lanark: A Life in Three Acts with the Citizens Theatre and the Edinburgh International Festival and Dunsinane with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Scotland.

Director Wils Wilson's recent theatre credits include The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart with National Theatre of Scotland, Praxis Makes Perfect for National Theatre Wales and

I Want My Hat Back for the National Theatre of Great Britain.

Other productions being presented by the Edinburgh International Festival at The Lyceum include Shakespeare's Measure for Measure by Cheek by Jowl and Moscow's Pushkin Theatre, Richard III by Schaubühne Berlin, and Shake, a pop-theatre rethink of the Twelfth Night by Eat a Crocodile as well as two acclaimed productions by Scottish theatre company, Vanishing Point, The Destroyed Room and Interiors.

Wind Resistance was originally performed as a work-in-progress in early 2016.

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