How to Hold Your Breath, Royal Court

Culture Whisper says: ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭒
Below is our preview, which explains the background of the show. Click here to read How to Hold Your Breath review.
 

What starts off as a seemingly innocent one night stand, Zinnie Harris new play takes us on a thrilling and magical journey across Europe and examines the true cost of modern day morality.
Star of Shameless and Hamlet, Maxine Peake
Fresh from a triumphant turn as the great Dane himself in Machester Royal Exchange's production of Hamlet, Maxine Peake will return to the London stage to star in How to Hold Your Breath. Described by The Times as a 'stunningly good' Hamlet, Peake is a seasoned stage star at the peak of her career with plenty of experience at The National Theatre and The Royal Court. She's a familiar face from starring in TV dramas including Shameless, Dr Who and The Village.
Zinnie Harris: playwright
Though Zinnie Harris is perhaps not one of the country’s best known playwrights, she is certainly one of the most prolific. Starting her career at the Hampstead in ’99, she then received five star reviews for her play Further than the Furthest Thing with the Dundee Rep. Among commissions from the Royal Court, the RSC and the National, and being shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for playwrighting, she has seen tremendous success in recent years. Her adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House with Gillian Anderson was staged at the Donmar and she collaborated with the National Theatre of Scotland when Vicky Featherstone was Artistic Director to create The Wheel. This groundbreaking piece of theatre garnered several awards at the Edinburgh Fringe (deservedly so) for its depiction of a family torn apart by war, a theme to which she returns in How to Hold Your Breath. We are excited at the prospect of this next creative partnership between Featherstone and Harris. 
Vicky Featherstone: Royal Court Artistic Director
Political drama is familiar territory for Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone. Only last year she was directing Lasha Bugadze’s The President has Come to See You, which explored the the invasion of Georgia, as part of a season of new plays from both Georgia and the Ukraine. And her directorial debut in her role as the Royal Court was the divisive and controversial The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas, which gave a slow appraisal of morality and lovelessness.
Featherstone feels passionately about new writing and political plays such as How to Hold your Breath: “ [They] are an important reminder of the reach of the Royal Court in uncovering voices and stories from all around the world through the International department. Voices which remind us what the Royal Court is for – to ask the questions of our time, to express the ideas of the future and the world we live in through theatre .”