Theater

When Marie was a child, her grandmother Heather used to tell her stories about her life in Algiers during World War Two: smuggling documents to refugees from the Nazis, going to dances with American soldiers, giving birth alone during an air raid. But after the war, her stories stop. What happened in the decades between Heather’s youth in Algeria and her elderly life in a provincial French town? Years later, Marie asks her mother what happened to Heather, and a heartbreaking story emerges of a trapped young woman determined to find her liberty – no matter the cost. But there are gaps in the story and questions that can’t be answered. Can we ever know the whole truth about another person?

Marie Phillips 
Marie Phillips is a novelist whose work includes the international bestseller ‘Gods Behaving Badly’ (NL: ‘Goddelijk Huishuiden), the Bailey’s Prize-longlisted ‘The Table of Less Valued Knights’, and the Shakespearean comedy ‘Oh, I Do Like To Be…’ With Robert Hudson she wrote the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 series ‘Warhorses of Letters’ which starred Stephen Fry. As a storyteller she has performed across the UK and Europe, with shows including ‘A La Carte’ at the Amsterdam International Storytelling Festival 2019 and Amsterdam Fringe 2020, and ‘The Odyssey’, a site-specific work for de Ceuvel, 2022. She toured Belgium with the music and mythology show ‘Lalaei’ which is also featured at the festival this year. She is a contributor to the international hit podcast ‘This American Life’. “As if Jane Austen were rewriting Terry Pratchett” – The Guardian.