Nottingham playwright Jane Upton’s new one-woman show, Finding Nana, receives its world premiere at the festival tomorrow and is up for a Fringe First award.
Upton, a George Devine Award-winner, has written Finding
Nana to remember the halcyon summers of her youth during which she and her Nana would share the same room in the same hotel in the same Isle of Wight seaside resort for the same two weeks every year. That was until Nana started to lose her memory.
Finding Nana, by 2016 George Devine Award-winner and Derbyshire-based playwright, Jane Upton, gets its official world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe this month.
Jane Upton’s Finding Nana remembers the halcyon summers of her youth during which she and her Nana would share the same room in the same hotel in the same Isle of Wight seaside resort for the same two weeks every year. That was until Nana started to lose her memory.
Flitting between the past and present and childhood and old age, Finding Nana – an autobiographical play – charts the journey back to find a beloved Nana who died in 2011 while suffering with dementia. Directed by Katie Posner, it stars recent Nottingham Television Workshop graduate Phoebe Frances Brown.
Jane Upton says: “Finding Nana has been in the
making for a while and so I’m over the moon that it will get its world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe. This play has a piece of my heart in it. It’s a tale of love and loss and what it means to live and think, and the crippling fear of forgetting. It’s a tribute to that specific and amazing relationship you can only really share with a
beloved grandparent. I’m so happy and grateful to share our story to which I’m sure so many people will relate.”
New Perspectives is an East Midlands-based national touring
theatre company which specialises in creating dynamic performances for rural audiences. Its focus on new writing, adaptations and revivals, are presented in community settings and venues nationally and internationally. The company also provides career defining training and mentoring opportunities for emerging artists and manages the rural touring scheme Northants Touring Arts.
New Perspectives’ Artistic Director, Jack McNamara,
says: “When we saw the excited reactions that children and parents had to this production on tour we knew we had to bring it to Edinburgh. It literally had audiences buzzing earlier this year and it has a real festival energy about it.
It’s a perfect introduction to theatre for young audiences – and has enough humour to keep adults entertained too. The works we are taking to Edinburgh are a snapshot of the very best of what we offer; quality small-scale theatre which is rooted in local communities and for audiences of all ages.”
