Canary

Description

Canary is multi-award winning playwright Jonathan Harvey's long-awaited return to the stage: a deeply moving, funny, unflinching, and often magical story about love, honesty and being brave enough to sing out at the top of your voice - with style. In 1960s Liverpool two lovers hide their homosexuality in the closet, then go their separate ways. While pits close and dole queues grow, a couple of runaways find Heaven in 1980s London. And today the paparazzi chase a love story that could tear a family apart. Then a grieving mother gets lost up a mountain, with a vicar for some dubious consolation. With a unique richness of texture and range, Canary combines pathos and humour with a wildly ambitious scope crossing decades through cyclical family histories. The diverse character list includes a primetime TV host, Queen Isabella, Eleanor Rigby, an 'aversion therary' doctor, Mary Whitehouse and striking miners. Skilfully pulling these wide-ranging threads together, Canary provides a social overview of Britain during the last 50 years, with a focus on the struggle against homophobia. Jonathan Harvey's trademark style of warmth, poignancy, humour and imagination is obvious in this epic, Liverpudlian Angels in America for the 21st century.

Jonathan Harvey is an award-winning playwright whose plays include: The Cherry Blossom Tree (Liverpool Playhouse Studio) Wildfire (Royal Court); Beautiful Thing (Bush Theatre, London and Donmar Warehouse/Duke of York's), John Whiting Award; Babies (National Theatre Studio/Royal Court), George Devine Award and Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award; Boom Bang-A-Bang (Bush Theatre); Hushabye Mountain (ETT/Hampstead) and Out in the Open (Hampstead/Birmingham Rep). Television and film work includes: West End Girls (Carlton); Beautiful Thing (Channel Four); Gimme Gimme Gimme (BBC).

'It's a heartfelt tribute to lives shattered by homophobia and to the courage of those men... who fought to change the world.' * Clare Brennan, Observer, 02.05.10 * 'The play is permeated with the character's self-loathing, which drives home the message that we must be true to our feelings, and that those who don't know their history risk their history risk dying by it.' * Robert Hewison, Sunday Times, 02.05.10 * 'There's real poignance and provocation.' * Sam Marlwe, The Times, 06.05.10 *