Paksie Vernon

Emma was having the time of her life. Now she's in rehab. Her first step is to admit that she has a problem. But the problem isn't with Emma, it's with everything else. She needs to tell the truth. But she's smart enough to know that there's no such thing. When intoxication feels like the only way to survive the modern world, how can she ever sober up?

October 1943. In a small office on the Avenue Foch in Paris, a Gestapo interrogator is questioning a young woman who has been known by many different names: Babuli, Jeanne-Marie, Nora, Madeleine. As one of the secret agents of Britain's Special Operations Executive –and the first female radio operator to be sent undercover into France– she has evaded capture far longer than most. But now she has been betrayed. As she faces the fate she has dreaded so long, memories crowd in – a beloved father, a thwarted lover, a gruelling journey to war, and an endless longing for her childhood piano. What has led her here? A Small and Quiet Light is based on the life of Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan (1914-1944), an extraordinarily courageous woman who paid the ultimate price for her heroic fight against fascism. Directed by Elin Scholfield, this filmed stage play was written by Stephanie Street and performed at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, London. UK.

Four agitators are dispatched from Soviet Russia to foster revolution in pre-communist China. En route they meet a young sympathiser who offers to be their guide, but when they return to Moscow, they confess to his killing. When is it right to kill? Birmingham Opera Company presents The Decision, a visceral, rarely performed work by writer Bertolt Brecht and composer Hanns Eisler. Here artistic, moral and social challenges come hand in hand. Living through a period of intolerance and censorship in the 1920s and 30s, Brecht and Eisler were both banned by the Nazis. Later, in their new adopted home on the other side of the Atlantic, the pair were investigated by the House Committee of Un-American Activities. Now in the 2020s, Brecht’s ‘learning play’ The Decision still has the potency to provoke. Birmingham's production is described by The Stage as ‘impressive, immersive’ and by The Spectator ‘as an encounter with a genuinely evil work of art.’