Prior collaborators on the magical and mysterious Holloway, the dazzling duo join forces once again for Ness, which just might have something in common with a zone of intrigue not that far from our venue... Somewhere on a salt-and-shingle island, inside a ruined concrete structure known as The Green Chapel, a figure called The Armourer is leading a ritual with terrible intent. But something is coming to stop him. "Ness goes beyond what we expect books to do. Beyond poetry, beyond the word, beyond the bomb -- it is an aftertime song. It is dark, ever so dark, nimble and lethal. It is a triumphant libretto of mythic modernism for our poisoned age. Ness is something else, and feels like it always has been" says Max Porter, and we believe him.
Robert Macfarlane is the author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and The Lost Words, co-created with Jackie Morris. Mountains of the Mind won the Guardian First Book Award and the Somerset Maugham Award and The Wild Places won the Boardman-Tasker Award. Both books have been adapted for television by the BBC. The Lost Words won the Books Are My Bag Beautiful Book Award and the Hay Festival Book of the Year. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and writes on environmentalism, literature and travel for publications including the Guardian, the Sunday Times and The New York Times.
Stanley Donwood is a graphic designer, artist and writer. He has worked with the British band Radiohead since 1994, producing the artwork for all their albums and promotional materials. He is also the author of numerous books including Humour, Catacombs of Terror!, Slowly Downward and Small Thoughts. His monograph, There Will Be No Quiet, is published by Thames & Hudson in October.
Stephen Dillane's most recent work has been an ongoing development with Gare St Lazare Ireland of Samuel Beckett's 'How It Is' for the Cork Everyman stage (the latest episode to be revived in April 2020 at the Coronet in London). Before that he filmed a version of Anthony Horowitz's teenage 'Alex Rider' stories for TV and before that was on stage at the National Theatre in a production of Martin Crimp's 'When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other' with Kate Mitchell and Cate Blanchett. He worked with Artist Tactita Dean on two films: 'Event for Stage' - which was also a live production at the Sydney Biannale -and 'Antigone', which has just been bought by MOMA in new York. He has been invovled in many theatre, film, TV and radio productoins throughout the world.