Cannibals

Life in a farming village on the edge of Europe is modest and punishing. Then war and modernisation roll through, and Lizaveta has to flee for her life. She reaches an elderly woman's farm, where she starts to rebuild something like a normal existence, until her history finds her and she is forced to move on again.

Her road leads through a landscape of mud and bloodshed, past icon painters and holy fools, and eventually across continents to the far side of the globe. Seen through Lizaveta's eyes, the places, loves, families and selves that once felt familiar gradually grow foreign and uncanny.

This is a bold, unusual play by Manchester playwright Rory Mullarkey, and his first full-length work. He wrote it while serving as Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Royal Exchange in 2011.