About the Play:

Burnt by the Sun is a full-length drama adapted for the stage by Peter Flannery, based on the screenplay written by Nikita Mikhalkov and Rustam Ibragimbekov. Passion and politics collide in a chilling tale of betrayal, intrigue and love gone wrong set amidst the chaos of Stalinist Russia. Burnt by the Sun is a tense, absorbing play that shows the reality of daily life among the middle classes at the very beginning of Stalin's Great Terror. Even a decorated hero of the Russian Revolution and his family are not safe from the full, horrifying reach of Stalin's secret agents.

Burnt by the Sun is set in 1936 as Russian dictator Joseph Stalin was unleashing the first of his terrible purges. General Kotov, decorated Red Army hero of the Russian Revolution, and his beloved much younger wife are whiling away the summer in the country with their child and her extended family of grandmothers and cousins. It is not an entirely comfortable arrangement. Kotov is pure peasant, school of hard knocks; his wife and her family are eccentric Chekhovian aristocrats. Enter his wife's first love, a quixotic character whose recent whereabouts and reasons for showing up now are difficult to fathom. Kotov senses danger, and not just on the romantic front. Amidst a tangle of sexual jealousy, retribution and remorseless political backstabbing, Kotov feels the full, horrifying reach of Stalin's rule. Poised at the beginning of what became known as Stalin's Great Terror, which caused forced migration, imprisonment and as many as 2 million deaths, Burnt by the Sun shows a brutal future encroaching on the last days of a fading world.

Burnt By The Sun is one of the most successful Russian films ever; it won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 1994 and the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1995. This stage adaptation of Burnt by the Sun premiered in 2009 at the National Theatre in London.

Cast: 6 female, 10 male, 2 girls plus extras

What people say:

"...a cracker... starts out like something by Chekhov and ends up as a gripping Stalinist thriller... Funny, affecting and taut with suspense, Burnt by the Sun is a new play that already feels like a classic." — The Daily Telegraph

"...a brilliant playwriting achievement... a wonderful panoramic view of a family and its misfortune with an inexorable, gruesome dramatic tread." — The Independent

"Skilfully adapted...brings Russian history into riveting close-up." — The Evening Standard

"As in Chekhov, almost every character is given contradictory impulses and emotions. Latched on to a study of allegiances, alliances and lies both personal and avowedly political, it adds up to an almost thriller-like group portrait." — Variety

About the Playwright:

Peter Flannery is one of Britain's most highly regarded dramatic writers. He was educated at the University of Manchester and is best known for his work while a resident playwright at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Recipient of the Dennis Potter Award for outstanding achievement in television in 1997, his TV work includes the highly-acclaimed TV adaptation of his seminal play Our Friends in the North (named by the British Film Institute as one of the 100 Greatest British TV Programs of the 20th century), and the crime drama Inspector George Gently.