Barney Norris is to adapt Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day which will have its world première at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate before a national tour.
Ishiguro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2017. His novel The Remains of the Day was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989.
The story will be re-imagined by Norris who won the Critics’ Circle award for most promising playwright in 2014 for Visitors which was produced at both the Arcola and Bush theatres.
The Remains of the Day will be produced by Royal and Derngate and Out of Joint in association with Oxford Playhouse.
Norris said, “this is a deeply emotional project for me, a chance to work with three companies I care for very much. There’ve been Norrises living in Northamptonshire as far back as records go, so to work in Northampton and get to share a play with my family there is glorious.
“To do that while also working with Oxford Playhouse, where I had my first job in the theatre and am still an associate now, and Out of Joint, the company that made me want to work in this trade and where I worked in the office for a couple of years, is a very precious opportunity.
“The Remains of the Day is one of those stories that appear every now and again which seem, almost as soon as they’re written, to belong to the world. It’s entered the bloodstream of our culture. To work with such extraordinary material is a great gift.”
The play will be directed by Christopher Haydon who directed Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men at Birmingham REP in 2013 and in the West End. In 2017 he directed Royal and Derngate’s co-production of The Caretaker by Harold Pinter.
He said, “The Remains of the Day has been my favourite novel for many years. Barney Norris has exactly the right theatrical understanding and delicate sensibility to turn this engaging and highly political love story into a moving and dynamic piece of theatre. I’m thrilled to be working with him on it.”
The Remains of the Day runs at Royal and Derngate from Saturday 23 February until Saturday 16 March 2019.