For Capital of Culture Year, the Everyman continues its reputation for producing powerful and moving new writing with a world premiere by Esther Wilson, one of the writers of the award-winning Unprotected. TEN TINY TOES is an uncompromising and heartbreaking story of mothers and families and what happens when a distant war comes home. Directed by Polly Teale (Shared Experience) this potent new play is at the Liverpool Everyman through Saturday 5 July 2008.
Like every mother Gill (Lisa Parry) wants the best for her sons. Raise them well, keep them safe, clean and out of trouble. But for Michael (David Lyons) and Chris (Joe Shipman) the choices are few and far between. The only way to have the best is to be the best – join the army. As the brutal business of war unfolds, the boys become men their mother doesn't recognise and maternal love is put to a gruelling test. Glued to the news and linked from their sofas to the battlefield by satellite, the mothers join force as they try to find a political voice for their lost sons.
Writer Esther Wilson is best known as lead writer on the hard-hitting docu-drama Unprotected, which premiered at the Liverpool Everyman in March 2006 and moved audiences and critics alike with its personal accounts by the mothers of murdered street sex workers in Liverpool. It also raised the national debate on proposed safety zones in city centres for street sex workers and went on to win the Amnesty International Award for Freedom of Speech at the Edinburgh Festival that summer. For TEN TINY TOES Esther worked closely with Rose Gentle and other mothers and families who have lost, or who currently still have, sons and daughters serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Director Polly Teale is the joint artistic director of Shared Experience, one of Liverpool's favourite visiting companies, renowned for their powerful, imaginative and visually stunning productions. Polly recently directed Shared Experience's revival of Diane Samuels' Kindertransport, which played to sell out audiences at the Liverpool Playhouse last year. She was also joint director with Nancy Meckler of Helen Edmundson's stirring adaptation of War and Peace at the Playhouse in February as part of a UK tour.
The cast of seven includes Joe Shipman (The Way Home, Liverpool Everyman) David Lyons (Brookside, Mersey Television), Lisa Parry (Everyword, Liverpool Everyman and Unprotected, BBC Radio 4), Barry McCormick (Lillies, World/BBC, Brookside, Mersey Television), Joanna Bacon (Love and Money, Manchester Royal Exchange/Young Vic), Paula Stockbridge (Once We Were Mothers, New Vic, Newcastle Under Lyme and numerous productions for Orange Tree Theatre) and Fionnuala Dorrity (Out of the Blue, Liverpool Everyman and tour). -- www.everymanplayhouse.com
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