A Manchester Love Story - with singing

Manchester International Festival has commissioned Victoria Wood, one of the UK's best-loved writers and performers, to create a new theatre piece for 2011, inspired by one of Manchester's most iconic music events.

It's the summer of 1969 and Tubby, an overweight insurance man, and Enid, a buttoned up secretary, are back on the stage of the Free Trade Hall forty years after they first stood there as children, singing their hearts out with Hallé orchestra. It's the anniversary of the Manchester School Children's Choir recording of Nymphs and Shepherds.

But Tubby and Enid don't sing any more - they're just doing a little interview for local television. And they are not children with everything ahead of them, they are two middle aged people who have left a lot of chances pass them by.

Two stories unfold in Victoria Wood's new play: the children of 1929 are eagerly gearing up for the big day of the recording and in 1969, Tubby and Enid are trying to reconnect with who they were then, and who they could be now.

Together with a leading cast, That Day We Sang will feature a new Manchester Children's Choir, formed especially by MIF Creative for this major new production. The show will also feature members of the Hallé Youth Orchestra.

Victoria Wood will both write and direct; set and costume designs come from multi-award winner Lez Brotherston, whose recent work includes Matthew Bourne's Cinderella, West End musical Sister Act and the forthcoming Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Nigel Lilley is Musical Director; recent credits include Piaf, La Cage aux Folles and Spring Awakening. Both Nigel and Lez also worked on Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques.

'Victoria Wood is a true original and a local hero. It's a huge pleasure to be welcoming her to the Festival, to write and direct this major new production that revisits a remarkable episode from our city's musical history.' Alex Poots, Festival Director

Commissioned by MIF Creative. Produced by Manchester International Festival. With support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

THAT DAY WE SANG, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY VICTORIA WOOD
MANCHESTER OPERA HOUSE, OPERA HOUSE, QUAY STREET, M3 3HP
Wed 6 / Fri 8 / Sat 9 / Tue 12 / Wed 13 / Thu 14 / Fri 15 / Sat 16 JULY at 19:30
Sat 9 JULY at 14:30
Tickets £15 - £35 (no per ticket booking fee; transaction charge applies)
Concessions available
Box Office: www.mif.co.uk / Ticketmaster +44 844 847 2484

Creative Team
Victoria Wood Writer & Director
Lez Brotherston Set & Costume Designer
Nigel Lilley Musical Director
Mark Henderson Lighting Designer
Anna Flannagan Choir Master

- End

Notes to Editors

Victoria Wood is one of our most celebrated comedy writers and has few equals in the UK as a stand-up comedian. Victoria was born in Prestwich, Lancashire in 1953 and now lives in London with her two children. She studied Drama at Birmingham University and began her career whilst she was still a student, winning ITV's New Faces after graduation. Folk nights and late night theatres followed, and in 1978 Victoria appeared (for the first time with Julie Walters) at the Bush Theatre in London in In At The Death. She won the Plays and Players Award and the Evening Standard Award for the Most Promising Playwright for her first play, Talent, which was subsequently adapted for television, starring Victoria and Julie Walters.

Victoria has continued to mix TV and stage work throughout her career. She has won several BAFTAs for her television work including Victoria Wood - As Seen On TV and An Audience with Victoria Wood. Her stand-up tours have broken records around the country and have been filmed for best-selling videos and DVDs and she has published several books, including a collection of half-hour plays originally written for the BBC, Mens Sana in Thingummy Doodah.

Victoria's first sit-com dinnerladies, was shown on BBC 1 1998-1999, winning prizes including the Best New TV Comedy at the National Television Awards 1999. In February 2005, Victoria's musical, Acorn Antiques, opened at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, before going on a national tour. Her one-off drama for ITV, Housewife 49, based on the war diaries of a housewife in Barrow, won an RTS award in 2006 for best single drama and Victoria won BAFTAs in two categories: Best single drama and best actress. It has also been nominated for An Emmy, a Writer Guild's Award for Best Original Drama and a Stonewall award.

An accomplished documentary maker, Victoria's factual work has included subjects as disparate as trains, the British Empire, and the obesity crisis. At present, Victoria is writing the story of the classical music scam perpetrated by the pianist Joyce Hatto for BBC One. Eric & Ernie, a play about the early days of Morecambe and Wise from an idea by Victoria and produced by her company Blue Door Adventures, went out on BBC One to huge audiences Christmas 2010.

Victoria was awarded a CBE IN 2008.

That Day We Sang is supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to pioneer new ways of engaging people in high quality arts activities, as part of its cultural understanding theme 'to help improve people's perception of each other by providing opportunities for interaction through culture and between cultures'.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is an international charitable foundation with cultural, educational and social interests. Based in Lisbon with branches in London and Paris, the Foundation is in a privileged position to support transnational work tackling contemporary issues in Europe. The purpose of the UK Branch in London is to connect and enrich the experiences of individuals, families and communities, and one of its core aims is to promote intercultural understanding. For more information about the work of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the UK please visit www.gulbenkian.org.uk

Manchester International Festival is the world's first festival of original, new work and special events and takes place biennially, in Manchester, UK. The Festival launched in 2007 as an artist-led, commissioning festival presenting new works from across the spectrum of performing arts, visual arts and popular culture.

Manchester International Festival 2011 will run from Thursday 30 June - Sunday 17 July 2011. Register for updates at www.mif.co.uk