From Powerlines to Wish List. Busman’s holiday for anyone who wants it.

Manchester Royal Exchange will be co-producing along with the Royal Court “Wish List” a play by Katherine Soper directed by Matthew Xia. It runs from the 24th of September 2016 to the 15th of October 2016 in The Studio.

PERFORMANCE TIMES:
Monday – Saturday evenings, 7.30pm
Saturday and Thursday matinees, 2.30pm

TICKET PRICES:
Standard tickets from £16.50
Half price previews from £5
Banquette tickets £10

BOOK TICKETS: Box Office 0161 833 9833 / online  

“I dreamt about this last night. I dreamt that I was packing boxes in boxes in boxes.”Tamsin packs boxes in a warehouse, on the clock, to a target, with a zero-hour contract. Her brother Dean is housebound. Working to obsessive-compulsive rituals of his own.

When Dean is declared fit for work, their benefits are cut. There are phone calls to make, appeals to lodge and endless forms to fill in. Tamsin must pack faster, work harder, and fight to get the support she and her brother so desperately need.

This sensitive and delicately powerful play asks what our labour is worth and how life can be lived when the system is stacked against you.

Winner of the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Katherine Sopers debut play will premiere in a production by Exchange Associate Artistic Director Matthew Xia (INTO THE WOODS).

The production is a collaboration with the Royal Court Theatre and our second year co-producing the Bruntwood Prize-winning play together, following Anna Jordan’s YEN in 2015/16.

“The play has such eloquence, such quiet craft, such dignity and such compassion.” Sir Nicholas Hytner (Chair of the Judges, Bruntwood Prize).

“At its heart it is about the attitude we have to work, towards the unemployed and towards the rights of those who are in work. It’s also a very wistful play about possibilities that could have presented themselves and the wishes that we might have for other ways our life might go.” Katherine Soper, Playwright.