Hard Times

Imagine a world where imagination is forbidden. Coketown is such a place. Thomas Gradgrind will not permit fanciful thoughts in his school or his home. But what effect will this policy have on his own children, Tom and Louisa? How can he protect them from corrupting influences - especially when the circus comes to town? Dark satanic mills, interrupted by the colour and vibrancy of Sleary's Circus, set the stage for a sweeping tale of suppressed love, seduction and social mores, peopled with the sharply observed exaggerated characters that Dickens is celebrated for.

Deborah McAndrew is a British writer and actor, whose adaptation of The Bells by Leopold Lewis (Northern Broadsides Theatre Company) opened at the Viaduct, Halifax in 2004. Her first original play Vacuum premiered with the same theatre company. Her version of Nikolai Gogol's A Government Inspector, with the action transplanted to a corrupt Yorkshire hamlet, is published by Methuen Drama.