Wayward Productions Presents SOUNDWOOD AND THE FABLE OF ABLE STAIN At Union Chapel

Wayward Productions present live poem Soundwood and improvised musical The Fable of Able Stain for one night only at Union Chapel 9 July 2022. In the first event of its kind, award-winning author Max Porter is joined by guests Fatima Bhutto, Nina Conti and Roger Robinson with music from rushes/esp, in an ensemble piece fused with image, text, improvised sound and storytelling in response to the country's social, political, environmental, cultural, and emotional state.

This event renews Porter's collaboration with Wayward Productions following the stage adaptation of Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, directed by Enda Walsh and starring Cillian Murphy, which played in Dublin, London and New York.

Max Porter is an English writer. His first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers won the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Europese Literatuurprijs and the BAMB Readers' Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. His second novel, Lanny was longlisted for the Booker Prize award and shortlisted for the 2019 Waterstones Book of the Year.

Fatima Bhutto is a Pakistani writer. She was born in Afghanistan and grew up in Syria and is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent books are The Runaways, a novel, and New Kings of the World, a nonfiction reportage on global popular culture.

Nina Conti is an actress, comedian, and ventriloquist. She has won a British Comedy Award, stormed Live at the Apollo, Russell Howard's Good News, Sunday Night at the Palladium, and made a BAFTA nominated film - all without even moving her lips.

Roger Robinson is a writer who has performed worldwide. He is the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019 and the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020, shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry 2020 and shortlisted for The OCM Bocas Poetry Prize, The Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, highly commended by the Forward Poetry Prize. His latest collection A Portable Paradise was a New Statesman book of the year.

rushes/esp is a four-piece experimental group. They create original improvised soundscapes drawing on traditions in folk, free jazz, electronic music, minimalism, drone, and dub. Two of the musicians also make up folk duo Alula Down.

Tickets: £25, concessions £15

Box Office: www.unionchapel.org.uk / 02072261686