NRTF Announces Rural Touring Spring Highlights

A new season of live performance including works by home-grown talent, fearlessly funny political shows, music and dance are touring village halls and community spaces across the UK this spring. Hosted by the touring schemes and member organisations of the National Rural Touring Forum (NRTF), the ongoing programme is focused on bringing exceptional performance to venues at the heart of rural communities.

Theatre highlights of the Spring season which runs from February to may include Poet Luke Wright's verse play Frankie Vah, set against a backdrop of 80s music and politics, which will tour the North of England with the Highlights rural touring scheme. Jamie Wood's I Am a Tree, which was shortlisted for an Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award, was developed in North Devon in 2016 and will return to the region with Beaford Arts visiting Croyde, Georgeham, George Nympton and West Anstey in May.

Wrong 'Un, presented by Red Ladder is a musical tribute to the women who fought for suffrage, celebrating the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, touring to Whitworth Library and Halton Mill in March with Spot on Lancashire. The Price of a Fish Supper is set to tour Ayrshire, where the play by local playwright Catherine Czerkawska is set. It sees a modern-day Ancient Mariner - the alcoholic Rab - relate his tale of the fishing industry's decline.

Milk Presents' Joan, which tells the story of Joan of Arc as you've never seen it before, performed by cabaret artist and drag king Lucy Jane Parkinson, is touring to Cornwall in March with Carn to Cove

Founded in 1997, the NRTF is a member-led organisation that works to deliver high quality art experiences that strengthen communities, providing the rural touring network with training, information and networking services as well as promoting better understanding of the rural touring network through research and advocacy.

www.ruraltouring.org