Coventry welcomes a new stage adaptation of Christie Watson’s bestselling memoir, The Language Of Kindness, premiering at Warwick Arts Centre, prior to a UK tour, the show runs from Thursday 20 May to Saturday 22 May 2021 – with tickets for ‘COVID safe’ groupings on sale now.
Based on Christie’s bestselling memoir recalling her 20 years as a nurse, The Language of Kindness is an ensemble-style piece of dance theatre: a joy-filled celebration of nurses and front-line healthcare workers.
A socially distanced production about the tactile work of nurses, where the company never touch, the production brings to life the realities, the challenges, heartbreaks and incomparable joys of working for the NHS and supporting families as they face their best and worst moments.
Produced by Wayward Productions (Grief Is the Thing With Feathers), The Language Of Kindness has been adapted and directed by Sasha Milavic Davies (Movement Direction: The Antipodes, NT; Berberian Sound Studio, Donmar Warehouse) and James Yeatman (There Is A Light that Never Goes Out: Scenes From the Luddite Rebellion, Royal Exchange Theatre; Dinomania, New Diorama Theatre).
Originally scheduled to visit Coventry last year, the production has taken on a new emotional power following the catastrophic arrival of the global COVID-19 pandemic – thrusting the importance of the health profession into the spotlight like never before.
Author Christie Watson comments: “Nurses give their soul to help sick people every day: working 14-hour days without eating or drinking because there is no time – not even to use the toilet. Nurses are using foodbanks. Nurses are homeless. Nurses now have the highest occupational suicide rate. Nurses do not have time to give the kindness, care and compassion that people so desperately need, but they find it anyhow. Compassion is the only thing that can save us – remind us who we are, or at least who we are meant to be. We will all be nursed at some stage in our lives. Every single one of us. We need our nurses.”
Co-creator Sasha Milavic Davies adds: “We are making work in a new world, which we are still trying to define and understand – which is what art is for. So, while I’m nervous and excited at the same time, I know there is no better time to be making live work for an audience than now.”
The Language Of Kindness runs from Thursday 20 to Saturday 22 May 2021, at Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL – with socially distanced performances in line with government guidance on social contact.
For more information and to book, see: www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
