We’re counting down to the London transfer of Debs Newbold’s acclaimed one-woman show Lost in Blue, which runs at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre from 15 to 26 February 2022. Check out the evocative trailer that shows how storytelling, live music and sound technology blend together to brilliant effect. Time to get booking!
Through the prism of Vincent van Gogh’s famous late work, Bedroom in Arles, Debs explores the phenomenon of living life in a coma, issues around end of life, and the healing power of art.
Annie is amazing at art. When she was three years old, her life was skewed off-course. On her 18th birthday, it threatens to happen again. Where do people go when they are in a coma? What happens when a family disagrees about how long to let a loved one hold on? What would van Gogh say about loss if you hung out with him in his room at Arles? And what do pigeons have to do with it?
Lost in Blue is written and performed by Debs Newbold. The production, which comes to London via Edinburgh and touring, is directed by John Wright, with sound design is by Kieran Lucas.
Show trailer
Where did the idea come from?
“This show started off as a niggling thought about the voice. I’d just lost my nan, who had an extraordinary voice, a cheeky Brum-Irish lilt totally unique to her. I knew I had a recording of her voice on a minidisc (remember those?), but it was ages before I could bring myself to listen to it.
“Hearing the recorded voice of a loved one who has died is as near to an encounter with a ghost as I can imagine. It’s as if they inhabit the air in the room with you for a moment, and I began to get ideas about a person who manages to be both absent and present at the same time.
“That’s where the image of a man in a coma came from. I saw him and I saw his daughter, like a painting. He lying on a bed, she looking out of a window, waiting. Another woman too, unable to speak. And that’s where it began.”
