The Lovely Bones on stage in Newcastle

Published: 17 February 2018
Reporter: Peter Lathan

The Lovely Bones

In 2002, The Lovely Bones, the first novel by American author Alice Sebold, became the best-selling book of the year in the US. It tells the story of 14-year-old Susie Salmon who is raped and murdered and watches from the Hereafter as her friends and family try to come to terms with what happened to her and she learns to accept the fact of her death.

She can only observe while her family cope with their grief in their different ways. Her father, Jack, is obsessed with identifying the killer. Her mother, Abigail, is desperate to create a brighter future. And her sister, Lindsay, is discovering the opposite sex with experiences that Susie will never know.

Susie is desperate to help them and there might be a way of reaching them.

In 2009, it was made into a film by Peter Jackson starring Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Rose McIver. The film received mixed reviews but Tucci received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Now it is to be made into a stage play, adapted by Bryony Lavery (Frozen, Stockholm and Beautiful Burnout for Frantic Assembly and Kursk for the Young Vic) and directed by Melly Still (Cymbeline for the RSC in 2016; The Cunning Little Vixen at Glyndebourne, Coram Boy in 2005 and From Morning to Midnight in 2013, both at the National Theatre).

The Lovely Bones is a co-production between Birmingham Rep, Royal and Derngate in Northampton and Northern Stage in association with Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse. It will première in Northampton where it will run from 1 to 22 September.

The production arrives in Newcastle on 9 October, continuing until 20. It also tours to Birmingham, Liverpool and Ipswich.

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