A rare stage adaptation of a 1946 British fantasy-romance film, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death, is to be produced in north Staffordshire.
Theresa Heskins, artistic director of Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic, has adapted the World War II story and will also direct it on the theatre’s in-the-round stage.
She said, “it’s a privilege to be creating only the second stage version of this much-loved film. It’s impossible to stage really—a play set on a vibrant earth, in a vast eternity and in an otherworldly in-between. Our cast and creative team are relishing the challenge of finding innovative ways to make some of Powell and Pressburger’s iconic scenes happen live on stage.
“The story has a powerful narrative: the protagonist is questioning his right to live and love. The original film premièred in 1946 yet the story feels especially relevant to today. We can’t wait to share it with audiences.”
In A Matter of Life and Death, British pilot Peter Carter’s plane goes down just off the coast of England. Miraculously, after leaping from his burning plane without a parachute, he finds himself face to face with June, the American radio operator who kept him company on his final journey. As the pair fall deeply in love, Peter discovers a celestial error has occurred—he was supposed to die, but the heavenly conductor missed him as he fell through the fog.
The cast features four actors who have appeared at the New Vic before. Michael Hugo, who in 2022 played Neil Baldwin in Baldwin and Malcolm Clarke’s Marvellous, which transferred to London’s @sohoplace, will take the role of Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death.
Thomas Dennis, who was Aramis in the New Vic’s 2024 production of Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, which Heskins adapted and directed, will play Peter. Polly Lister, who was the Warrior Queen in Heskins’s 2021 adaptation of Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s novel Beauty and the Beast, will be Doc. Jenny Murphy, who appeared in Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation of Arnold Bennett’s The Card at the New Vic in 2023, will be a section officer.
Alexander Bean will play the judge. He was chauffeur Clifton in the 2024 Theatre Royal Plymouth production of Drew McOnie and Lindsey Ferrentino’s adaptation of The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius and took the role of Lloyd Boateng in Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, an Octagon Theatre Bolton, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse and Theatre by the Lake co-production, in 2022.
The rest of the cast comprises Morgan Burgess as Abraham Farlan, Kaylah Copeland as June, musical director Howard Gray, Jack Heydon as a dog walker, Jessica Jolleys as the chief recorder, Sufia Manya as Dr Liza, Elliot Parchment–Morrison as Bob Trubshawe, Luke Thornton as the voice of Professor Brian Cox and an airman and Lucy Wells as the entertainments officer.
A 10-piece swing band will form part of the 16-strong cast to evoke the mood of the era. Musical direction and composition will be by Akintayo Akinbode. The set will be designed by Laura McEwen.
A Matter of Life and Death will run at the New Vic from Friday 28 March until Saturday 19 April.