PERFORMING ARTS

The Best in British theatre screenings continue with a new play by Nicholas Wright

Travelling Light imagines the birth of silent film in a remote Eastern European village at the turn of the century.

Motl Mendl, who's entranced by the flickering silent images on his father's cinematograph, makes this small Jewish community his camera's focus. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their village, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl - now a famed American film director - looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.

Nicholas Wright's new play is a funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood's golden age, and stars Tony and Olivier award winner, Antony Sher.

"As The Artist threatens to win the first silent Best Picture Oscar since 1927, Nicholas Wright's play offers a fairytale imagining of how it all began." The Times

"A love letter to the movies and an appealingly intelligent evocation of the Jewish folk culture that formed the basis of American cinema." Guardian

"Nicholas Wright's new play is a theatrical valentine to the movies." Daily Telegraph

4 STARS "Enchanting. A golden-hearted tragicomic fable." The Times