HEART WALL tickets

A new play with its heart and soul placed firmly in the north-west of England opens at the Bush Theatre on 7 April (Press night 14th April). Heart Wall, by Manchester writer and Bush Writers’ Group alum, Kit Withington, and directed by Katie Greenall, an Associate Director at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, invites us down the pub for an evening of family, banter, beer, and karaoke

It’s Friday night, and home from University, Franky is back at her local pub for the first time in years. A British institution, so often under threat of closure these days, the pub is the centre of the community where pints are poured, Motown music drifts from the tinny speakers, and karaoke starts at eight. It’s reassuringly familiar. Like nothing’s changed.

But, haunted by grief, Franky’s family is quietly unravelling around her. Her dad is hiding himself away, and buried family secrets are leaking through the cracks in every room.

A bittersweet, tender exploration of the long tail of grief and the fickleness of memory, Heart Wall asks where we go when the walls start closing in, and home has become somewhere you don’t know.

Heart Wall was co-commissioned with Oldham Coliseum.