Glossop's Partington Players Theatre are about to bring their first production of the new year to the stage.

They will be performing 'Things I Know To Be True' - a dark comedy drama spanning a year in the lives of the Price family. 

The play is both touching and poignant with an underlying element of dark comedy.

Bob and Fran Price have four children and we follow their struggles as secrets are revealed throughout. This could be any loving, working class family and we can see the truth in their plight.

From marriage breakdown to gender reassignment, dashed hopes and dreams, drug abuse, heartbreak and identity crisis, the family faces the truth of defining themselves in a modern day society.

The play is naturalistic, but features great use of non-naturalistic physical movement to emphasise the emotional connection between the characters as it follows the story of the family and their problems.

The story is written by Andrew Bovell and the Glossop production directed by Jayne Skudder.

Jayne explained: “I particularly like this play because I knew it included work by the Frantic Assembly Theatre Company (a physical theatre group) and a couple of years back I did a teacher training course with them and I absolutely loved their work.

“I found it really liberating and I just think it brings so much to this play in terms of bringing out the emotions and the physicality of the characters.

“It is contemporary, but while the genre is naturalistic it moves along through the seasons in the year, but then in between we’ve got these kind of flashbacks or back stories, which enable you to bring in a physical element to it and create quite stylised scenes.”

But Jayne added that the story of family life includes many elements that people will relate to, with the interwoven relationships between parents and siblings, as well as their own individual stories.

“I think there’ll be something that everyone can relate to in this, and it is very poignant and very emotional, very raw and real,” adds Jayne.

The production premièred in 2016 in Australia but has since been performed across the globe, including America and Spain.

Jayne said she has set the Partington production at ‘home’ in the UK.

“We’ve haven’t gone with the Australian accents as there’s a lot going on anyway and really it doesn’t add to it. We wanted it to be raw and natural and explore those emotions that are in that play,” she said.

‘Things I Know To Be True’ opens on Monday, January 30 and runs for six nights until February 4.

For tickets visit https://partingtonplayers.org.uk/ 

Read more from the Glossop Chronicle

Click here for more of the latest news

Click here to read the latest edition of the paper online

Click here to find out where you can pick up a copy of the paper