Event

NT Live: Travelling Light

A new play by Nicholas Wright, directed by Nicholas Hytner, featuring
Antony Sher. It is a fascinating and funny tribute to the Eastern European immigrants
who became major players in Hollywood's golden age.
In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father's cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their village, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl now a famed American film director looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.
How had a twenty-two-yearold pretentious layabout made a discovery that would elude every other cinematic pioneer for years to come?
Following Vincent in Brixton and The Reporter, Nicholas Wright's new play is a funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood's golden age. The award-winning Antony Sher whose previous work with the National Theatre includes Primo and Stanley returns to play Jacob.