Caroline Horton's ALL OF ME Returns For UK Tour

This Spring, Caroline Horton is set to tour the UK with her latest critically acclaimed solo show following a multi-award winning Edinburgh run in 2019.

In an intimate and absurd exploration of wanting to live and wanting to die, Caroline Horton reunites with director Alex Swift (Mess, How to Win Against History) to bring you the show that happens after the curtain call: strange, poetic, and against a backdrop of broken glitterballs. In 2012, Caroline's multi-award winning piece Mess introduced us to the struggle with anorexia shared by both Caroline and the show's protagonist Josephine. At the end of Mess, Josephine celebrated life despite her imperfect recovery from the illness: now, years later Caroline is alone on stage without her character to hide behind, and long after the buzz of that final uplifting scene has faded.

Caroline has collaborated with composer James Atherton and sound designer Elena Peña to create a cabaret soundscape as well as working with Professor Matthew Broome (Director of the Institute for Mental Health), Dr Alexandra Pitman (Senior Clinical Lecturer at University College London), and STOP Suicide, an award-winning Mind campaign based in Peterborough and Cambridge, during the making of the show.

Caroline Horton said, "I wanted to make a show that occupies the territory of recovery as I experience it - the bit that doesn't make a good story... the years spent on a relentless, incremental journey, the repetitive struggles, the giving up, then the trying again. In its wrongness and incompleteness, the show rebels against the lack of care or space the world offers when we need to grind to a halt, to descend, to sit with death and darkness, to surrender, to refuse to keep going. It's a show built somewhere between wanting to live and wanting to die and the sort of hope that can come by giving up and giving in to all that we are - including everything we've learnt to be ashamed of, including our darkness. And then I needed it to be a bit funny too - because of its darkness - and because of how ultimately absurd existence can feel."

Caroline Horton is a theatre maker, performer and writer. She was nominated for a 2013 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre for You're Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy, which also won The Stage Awards Best Solo Performer in 2010. Caroline's second show Mess continues to tour internationally after opening at The Traverse in Edinburgh in August 2012, where it won Best Ensemble at The Stage Awards and an Argus Angel award. Her controversial show Islands opened at The Bush in 2015 before appearing as part of the 2015 British Council Showcase at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her first radio play for BBC Radio 4, Paris, Nana & Me was shortlisted for the 2014 Imison Award; Pandora followed in April 2016 and her third has just been broadcast. Caroline became the first BBC Birmingham Writer in Residence in 2016. She is developing a new piece with Amerah Saleh at The Other Place (RSC) and touring her first show for young people, Muckers, made with Conde Duque (Madrid) and the egg (Bath).

Established in 2006, China Plate is one of the UK's most prolific and respected independent producers of contemporary theatre, producing work that engages 25,000 audience members annually. The company's central mission is to 'challenge the way performance is made, who it's made by and who gets to experience it.' China Plate has worked with artists, including Caroline Horton, Inspector Sands, David Edgar, Chris Thorpe, Rachel Chavkin, Rachel Bagshaw, Urielle Klein-Mekongo, Dan Jones, Ben Wright, Contender Charlie, Ella Grace, Katie Lyons, and Joan Clevillé. China Plate are Associate Producers at Warwick Arts Centre, Artistic Associates at the New Wolsey Theatre where they are Programmers of New Directions (the NRTF showcase) and partners with The Place, The NRTF and Take Art on the Rural Touring Dance Initiative.

Running Time: 70 mins | Suitable for ages 14+ Contains some nudity and themes of suicide and depression

Tour Dates

20 April Bloomsbury Theatre

University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT

7pm | £10

www.ucl.ac.uk/culture | 020 7679 2000

22 April Norwich Playhouse

42-58 St Georges St, Norwich, Norfolk NR3 1AB

7.30pm | £12

www.norwichplayhouse.co.uk | 01603 598598

24 April The Barbican, Plymouth

Castle Street, Plymouth, PL1 2NJ

7.30pm | £13.50 (£11.50 concs)

www.barbicantheatre.co.uk | 01752 267131

26 April Tolmen Centre, Cornwall

Fore Street, Constantine, Falmouth TR11 5AA

7.30pm | £10

Tolmencentre.co.uk | 01326 341353

30 April The Hub at St Mary's Lichfield

Market Street, Lichfield, WS13 6LG

8pm | £15

www.thehubstmarys.co.uk | 01543 256611

2 May Harlow Playhouse

Playhouse Square, Town Centre CM20 1LS

7.45pm | Pay what you can

www.playhouseharlow.com | 01279 431945

5 May Hull Truck Theatre, Hull

50 Ferensway, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire HU2 8LB

7pm | Prices TBC

www.hulltruck.co.uk | 01482 323638

7 May Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot

25 Station Rd, Didcot OX11 7NE

7.30pm | £12.50 (Concs £10.50 - £5)

www.cornerstone-arts.org | 01235 515144

9 May The Gulbenkian, Canterbury

University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NB

7.30pm | £13 (Concs £12 - £9)

www.thegulbenkian.co.uk | 01227 769075

11 May University of York Theatre
Heslington, York YO10 5DD

Times and prices TBC

www.york.ac.uk/tfti | 01904 320000

13 May The Ustinov, Theatre Royal Bath

Sawclose, Bath BA1 1ET

8pm | £17.50 (Concs £14.50)

www.theatreroyal.org.uk | 01225 448844

15 May Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales

Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3DE

7.30pm | Prices TBC
www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk | 01970 62 32 32

18 - 20 May Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh

2 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9SU

7pm | £10 (Concs £8)

www.assemblyfestival.com | 0131 623 3030

21 - 23 May Tron Theatre, Glasgow

63 Trongate, Glasgow, G1 5HB

7.45pm | £15/£17

www.tron.co.uk | 0141 552 4267

27 May Nottingham Playhouse

Wellington Circus, Nottingham, NG1 5AF

8pm | £12.50

www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk | 0115 941 9419

28 May The North Wall, Oxford

South Parade, Oxford OX2 7JN

8pm | £13 (Concs £11)

www.thenorthwall.com | 01865 319450

5 June The Hat Factory, Luton

65 - 67 Bute St, Luton LU1 2EY

7.30pm | £12

www.lutonculture.com/hat-factory | 01582 878100

9 June Brewhouse Arts Centre, Burton

Duke St, Burton upon Trent DE14 1EB

7pm | £10

Brewhouse.co.uk | 01283 508100

11 June Corn Exchange Newbury

Market Pl, Newbury, West Berkshire RG14 5BD

7.45pm and prices TBC

www.cornexchangenew.com | 0845 5218 218

14 June The Holbeck Working Men's Club

Jenkinson Lawn, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 9QX

Times and prices TBC

www.slunglow.org | 0113 226 0808

18 June Pound Arts Centre

The Pound, Pound Pill, Corsham, SN13 9HX

7.30pm | Prices TBC

poundarts.org.uk | 01249 701628