Elizabeth Gaskell 
Mary Barton (NHB Modern Plays) 
Stage Version

Elizabeth Gaskell’s panoramic novel of Victorian England, adapted for the stage by the author of Iron. Premiered at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, in 2006.
Manchester in the 1840s. By day, Mary Barton works in a dress shop making gowns for the daughters of the newly moneyed mill owners. By night, Mary aspires to join their class. As she strives to better herself, murder, intrigue and romance take over her life and the lives of those she loves.
Fast-paced, epic and exciting, Mary Barton presents a panorama of Manchester life from the mill owners’ new prosperity to the thousands of ordinary people living and dying in their factories.
‘full of heat and passion, Munro’s filleted version retains both Gaskell’s beady eye for detail and her compassion for all humanity’ – Guardian
‘powerful… Manchester’s dark history in riveting microcosm’ – The Times

A propos de l’auteur

Rona Munro has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television including the award-winning plays The James Plays trilogy (National Theatre of Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain), Iron (Traverse Theatre and Royal Court, London), Bold Girls (7:84 and Hampstead Theatre) and The Maiden Stone (Hampstead Theatre).
Other credits include Scuttlers for Manchester’s Royal Exchange, The Last Witch for the Traverse Theatre and the Edinburgh International Festival, Long Time Dead for Paines Plough and the Drum Theatre Plymouth, The Indian Boy and Little Eagles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Pandas for the Traverse in Edinburgh. She is the co-founder, with actress Fiona Knowles, of Scotland’s oldest continuously performing, small-scale touring theatre company, The Msfits. Their one-woman shows have toured every year since 1986.
Film and television work includes the Ken Loach film Ladybird Ladybird, Aimee and Jaguar and television dramas Rehab (directed by Antonia Bird) and BAFTA-nominated Bumping the Odds for the BBC. She has also written many other single plays for television and contributed to series including Casualty and Dr Who. Most recently, she wrote the screenplay for Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach and starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving.
She has contributed several radio plays to the Stanley Baxter Playhouse series on BBC Radio 4.