Following a run at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival and short tour of Scotland, the world premiere stage adaptation of National Poet of Scotland Jackie Kay’s acclaimed memoir Red Dust Road, a co-production between HOME Manchester and National Theatre Scotland, plays at HOME, Wednesday 11 – Saturday 21 September 2019.
Adapted for the stage by writer Tanika Gupta and directed by Dawn Walton, founder and outgoing Artistic Director of Eclipse Theatre, Red Dust Road is a personal and moving account of Jackie’s search for her birth parents, which took her from the quiet seaside town of Nairn in Scotland to bustling Lagos in Nigeria.
From the moment when, as a little girl growing up in 1960s and 1970s Scotland, Jackie realises that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents – her Highland mother and Nigerian father – the journey in Red Dust Road is one of unexpected twists, turns, and deep emotions, and comes complete with specially composed music from Tayo Akinbode.
Red Dust Road was first published in 2010, and was immediately hailed for its warmth and candour, winning the Scottish Book of the Year Award in the following year. Navigating the challenges of growing up as a mixed-race adopted Scot brought up by communist parents, Jackie discovers that inheritance is about much more than genes: that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells, and that what triumphs, ultimately, is love.
The role of Jackie Kay will be played by acclaimed stage and screen actor Sasha Frost, who trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts; legendary Scottish actress and comedian Elaine C Smith, known to millions as Mary Doll, the long-suffering wife of Rab C Nesbitt in the cult BBC comedy, and Lewis Howden play Jackie’s adoptive parents, Helen and John; Stefan Adegbola plays Jonathan, Jackie’s birth-father, and Irene Allan takes the role of Elizabeth, her birth-mother.
The nine-strong cast, who altogether play almost 30 different characters, is completed by Simone Cornelius, Elicia Daly, Seroca Davis, and Declan Spaine.
PERFORMANCE CALENDAR
Wed 11 September 2019, 19:30
Thu 12 September 2019 19:30 (press night performance)
Fri 13 September 2019 19:30
Sat 14 September 2019 14:00 (British Sign-Language-interpreted performance), 19:30
Tue 17 September 2019 19:30
Wed 18 September 2019 19:30 (Caption subtitled performance)
Thu 19 September 2019 14:00 (audio-described performance), 19:30
Fri 20 September 2019 19:30 Sat 21 September 2019 14:00 (Relaxed performance), 19:30
TICKETS £10 – £26.50 (concessions from £5)
