Small Island
Douban
小岛乱世情
opening date:
2019-04-17
genre:
theater
theater:
National Theatre
director:
Rufus Norris
playwright:
Helen Edmundson
actor:
Leah Harvey
/
Aisling Loftus
overview
Andrea Levy’s epic, Orange Prize-winning novel bursts to new life on the Olivier stage. A company of 40 tells a story which journeys from Jamaica to Britain, through the Second World War to 1948 – the year the HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury.
Adapted for the stage by Helen Edmundson, Small Island follows three intricately connected stories. Hortense yearns for a new life away from rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots. Hope and humanity meet stubborn reality as the play traces the tangled history of Jamaica and the UK.