Unity Theatre has announced two powerful theatrical productions coming to its Liverpool stage this July, offering audiences a mix of nostalgia, class exploration, and sharp storytelling.
The season opens with Near Miss on Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 July at 7:30pm, a production set in the cool, chaos of 00s Liverpool where the backdrop of a frenzied fake optimism and fantasy cannot last.
The play follows a young wife, mother, and teacher who is running from her past and hiding in her present.
Desperate to maintain the facade of the normality of her life, she contradicts the chaos with her calm and pushes the darkness deep inside.
Through a piercing vision into her persona within her classroom, the play explores the relentless pursuit of a life more ordinary and cascades the other lives that are hidden or protected within her.
Near Miss is a one-woman show starring Samantha Alton, directed by Margaret Connell and produced by Jennifer Vaudrey.
The production is part of the Watching Windows Trilogy, a set of three plays written by Helena Rand where each play is inspired by her real-life experience and other women’s stories.
The first play, Rotten Apple, follows the main character, Korina moving to New York in the early 90s as an aspiring actress, where she meets a young director, Al, leading to a whirlwind relationship that ends in tragedy.
In Near Miss, audiences meet Korina in 2005 back in Liverpool as a high-school English teacher, young mother, and wife.
Although it deals with some quite difficult subject matters, Near Miss is also a real celebration of working-class houses and women in Liverpool and brings a nostalgic feel for life there in the early 2000s.
Tickets for both productions are available to book online here.
Exploring Class and Identity Through a Modern Scouse Lens
The summer programming continues with No One Will Tell Me How To Start a Revolution on Wednesday 15 July at 7:00pm.
The story follows Suzie, Edwina and Lucy, who have moved to a new school in a new town.
These are three very different sisters who will do anything to fit in and yet are desperate to be noticed by those around them.
The narrative questions how far they will go to break out of the roles in which they’ve been cast, and whether they will ever be able to truly change their lives when they’re swimming against the tide.
Featuring an all-Scouse cast, Luke Barnes’ play explores ideas of class, social mobility and identity in this poignant and funny portrait of self-discovery, returning home to Liverpool in July with this production at Unity Theatre.
Reviewers have previously praised the text, noting that Barnes has created three immensely likeable and entirely believable characters, whose fraught relationships with their snooty new classmates and teachers is recounted in a full-blooded, highly energised manner.
READ MORE: Chester Zoo To Keep Gates Open Until 8pm As Afterglow Included In Standard Day Admission
