Lights Up - Season 1

Pale Sister is a retelling of the classic tale of Antigone seen through the eyes of Ismene as she recounts her sister's infamous defiance of their uncle, the king of Thebes, and witnesses what happens when a woman speaks truth to power.

The play was written by Colm Toibin especially for Lisa Dwan, who gives a tour-de-force perofmance. Directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, Pale Sister asks the question of all of us: 'Who are we if we are not Antigone?'

The production was born out of a semester-long course, taught by Toibin and Dwan at Columbia University, which explores Antigone's story and its many adaptations throughout history.

The international premiere of a searing new play from David Ireland centres on a Belfast woman reflecting on her turbulent life amidst the Troubled past.

Sharp-witted cleaner Sadie develops an intense, dysfunctional yet passionate relationship with a much younger man, triggering a psychological showdown with the remnant demons of her past. She confronts these ghosts, calling out their contribution to the path life took her down.

Expect strong language, painful subjects and surprising consequences.

Sadie was rehearsed in isolation, following government Covid guidelines. The performance was filmed for television at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, without an audience, as part of BBC Arts' Lights Up festival.

A new drama written by Natasha Marshall adapted from the play of the same name. It is a semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age drama about finding your voice.

Half Breed tells the story of Jazmin, a young woman who lives in a small village in the west country, with a burning desire to escape its small-minded atmosphere and move to the city to become an actress.

Jazmin is the only mixed-race woman in her village and experiences racism on a regular basis, normalised by her friendship group. By confronting the bullies, she breaks free of the claustrophobic atmosphere of her home town.

Three characters sit for a silent painter and reveal their personal truths in a play about love, loss and the importance of human connection.

When a lonely estate agent sells a house to Alice, a charismatic social media influencer, the two strike up an unlikely friendship. But as her obsession with Alice's seemingly perfect world intensifies, the lines between the online world and reality become dangerously blurred.

A razor-sharp, twisted comedy that explores the corrosive effects of social media and isolation.

Fortune is live streaming an informal spoken word gig to her online followers. As she takes the mic, she desperately hopes that her audience will include the one person who needs to hear her truth: her mother.

Weaving together words, poems, and memories, she shares her story, from her life as a vulnerable little girl in a bedroom in Kinshasa to a bold young woman partying and performing in Liverpool.

Only now is she ready to revisit a past she has locked away, to recognise the power behind her mother's warnings, and to accept the truth that she was never to blame for what happened to her.

Inspired by the life of Adam Kashmiry, Adam tells the remarkable story of a young trans man and his struggle across genders and borders to be himself. Originally a multi-award-winning stage play, Adam has been reinvented as a compelling, theatrical on-screen drama.

Born in Egypt, Adam was assigned female at birth but always knew he was a boy. Trapped in a deeply conservative society where falling in love with the wrong person can get you killed, he knew that he had to escape. With a borrowed laptop he typed in a question: ‘Can the soul of a man be trapped in the body of a woman?' What followed was a catalyst to begin the epic journey for the right to change his body. To the boy he knew himself to be.

Written by playwright and dramaturg Frances Poet, and reworked for the screen, this hour-long drama focuses on Adam's isolating experiences in a Glasgow flat while awaiting a decision on his asylum claim. Trapped in a Catch-22 where he cannot prove his need for asylum as a trans man until he transitions but is unable to start transitioning until he is granted asylum, Adam is left alone to wrestle with his conflicting thoughts and feelings as every waking moment sees him haunted by figures from both his past and his present.

She cared for him, she understood him… And now she's gone.

Orpheus is alone, playing tunes in his record shop, when a visit from an enigmatic stranger sets music, myth and his own fragile reality into a spin. Driven by an astonishing original soundtrack of hip-hop, soul and funk, he ventures back into the past to confront some painful truths in the hope of reconciling himself with his future.

Inspired by ancient Greek myth, acclaimed rapper and playwright Testament fuses spoken word and beatboxing with a cinematic score performed by members of the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North.

In an extraordinary feat of storytelling and musicianship, Testament fills an empty theatre with Orpheus's dreams, reminiscences and struggle for redemption. The result is a compelling examination of isolation and an affirmation of the need for kindness and empathy, and of trust in the redemptive power of music.

A Leeds Playhouse and Opera North co-production premiered to a socially distanced audience in October 2020, Orpheus in the Record Shop returned to the locked-down Leeds Playhouse in early 2021 to be reworked for this new film.

King Leontes rips his family apart with his jealousy, but grief opens his heart. Will he find the child he abandoned before it is too late?

Set across a span of 16 years, from the coronation to the moon landings, this new production of Shakespeare's play is staged for the screen by the Royal Shakespeare Company and directed by RSC Deputy Artistic Director Erica Whyman.

‘What people do you know who can party through all of the earth's elements?'

2017. Carnival is here. The streets of Notting Hill are alive with history and amidst the soca, sequins and endless feathers, Jade and Nadine are fighting for space in a world that should be theirs. A timely echo of Caribbean resistance across centuries, J'Ouvert is a joyful and fearless story of two best friends, battling to preserve tradition in a society where women's bodies are frequently under threat.

Filmed on the stage of the Harold Pinter Theatre, J'Ouvert originated at Theatre 503 in a co-production with Bad Breed and Tobi Kyeremateng.