Major UK revival of Barney Norris’ VISITORS to open at The Watermill

Photo credit: Jay Brooks

A major new UK revival of Barney Norris’ award-winning play Visitors will run at The Watermill from 31 March-22 April.

It will also be directed by Norris, whose tender portrayal of a family on the cusp of major change, learning to live and love with dementia, is set in his beloved rural Wiltshire.

Edie’s mind is starting to falter and Arthur’s legs aren’t what they were but, from the comfort of their armchairs, they dive into a kaleidoscope of memories from their life together. In their sleepy farmhouse at the edge of Salisbury Plain, they await the arrival of a young visitor and a reunion that will expose a family whose closeness is fraying at the seams.

Barney Norris said: “Visitors is a story about love, the way that love shapes a life, the way that love extracts a toll, the way that love defines us. It’s also a play about people clinging on to ways of life, trying to make the world work for them as it seems to be trying to fall apart. And a play about what it’s like to live in the country. I wrote it fifteen years ago, a love song to the world I come from, and with this production I am bringing it home. The play’s set outside the north Wiltshire village of Pewsey, and the Watermill, I think, is the closest producing theatre to the play’s actual landscape. When Paul Hart, the Watermill’s artistic director, asked if I’d like to do it there, I jumped at the chance.

“Revisiting stories as we go through our lives is a pleasure nearly all of us know - we all see multiple productions of the same Shakespeare, re-read our favourite novels, re-watch our favourite films. Returning to a play I wrote as a younger man has been a fascinating way of marking the passing of my own time. When I first staged this play, nothing had ever really gone wrong in my life. Now, a decade older, having survived some difficult times, and been a carer myself - care and caring are central to the vision of love offered in Visitors - I look back at this play and I can see how I have changed. That’s exciting and intriguing - it will lead to a different production, and I can’t wait to see how it develops.”

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