Up in Arms & Arcola Theatre to Stage World Premiere of EVENTIDE

Up in Arms and the Arcola Theatre today announce the world première of Barney Norris's new play Eventide, directed by Alice Hamilton. The production opens on 25 September, with previews from 23 September, and runs until 17 October, ahead of a national tour to venues includingTheatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, The North Wall and Salisbury Playhouse. Further tour dates will be announced shortly.

'Try and do something with your life. Be deliberate, you know?'

A love song, an elegy, a celebration - Eventide tells the story of three people whose worlds are disappearing. John is a landlord forced to sell up; Liz is a church organist who can't get a gig; Mark takes what work he can just to pay the rent. Their tales unfold round the back of a pub hidden deep in the heart of the Hampshire countryside. But is that heart still beating?

Barney Norris won the Critics' Circle and Off West End Most Promising Playwright Awards for Visitors ('Extraordinary' The Guardian, 'Heartbreaking' New York Times), which played a sell-out run at Arcola before transferring to the Bush Theatre. Eventide reunites him with director Alice Hamilton in a powerful new production from Up In Arms.

Barney Norris' plays include the critically acclaimed Visitors (Critics Circle Award and the Off West End Award for Most Promising Playwright). His first book, To Bodies Gone: The Theatre of Peter Gill, is published by Seren. In spring 2015 his short play Every You Every Me was produced by Salisbury Playhouse on a tour of schools and secure psychiatric units around Wiltshire. His first novel will be published by Doubleday in 2016.

Alice Hamilton's productions for Up in Arms include Barney Norris's plays Visitors (Arcola, Bush Theatre, national tour and rural tour), Fear of Music (tour with Out of Joint) and At First Sight (tour and Latitude Festival). Short plays include Belarus (Arcola for the Miniaturists), Extinct andStarcrossed (Bush for Courting Drama), The Kingdom of Me (Park Theatre for Hatch) and The Coldest Day Yet (Upstairs at the Western). She recently worked as assistant to Simon Godwin on a national tour of Regeneration and is currently Staff Director on Man and Superman (National Theatre). Forthcoming engagements include directing Orson's Shadow by Austin Pendleton (Southwark Playhouse).

UP IN ARMS is a touring theatre company from the south west. Founded in 2008 by co-artistic directors Alice Hamilton and Barney Norris, who first met in their local youth theatre, the company has grown in the last few years from presenting work above pubs, in classrooms and in woods, to collaborating with some of the UK's leading artists and organisations to develop acclaimed, award-winning work. Previous productions include Visitors(2014-2015), Fear Of Music (2012-2013) and At First Sight (2011).