Stage premier of play by award-winning writer to come to Theatre Royal

The stage premier “The Remains of the Day” by Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishigura is coming to the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds later this month.

1930s England. Darlington Hall runs like clockwork under one of the last truly great butlers.

Reserved and dutiful like his father before him and with the funny and forthright housekeeper Kenton by his side, Stevens faithfully serves his employer.

Meanwhile, England stands on a precipice, as fascism builds and boils in Europe.

Twenty years later, Stevens travels to find an old friend, remembering choices made and not made, journeying to one last chance at happiness.

Leading the cast will be Stephen Boxer as the butler Stevens, and Niamh Cusack as Kenton. They are joined by Stephen Critchlow, Pip Donaghy, Edward Franklin, Miles Richardson, Sadie Shimmin and Patrick Toomey.

The production will be the first time that Kazuo Ishiguro’s literary masterpiece has been brought to the stage, adapted by the novelist and playwright, Barney Norris and directed by Christopher Haydon.

Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is a British novelist, screenwriter and short-story writer.

Born in Nagasaki, Japan, his family moved to the UK in 1960 when he was five.

He is considered one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction authors in the English-speaking world, having received four Man Booker Prize nominations and winning the award in 1989 for “The Remains of the Day”.

In 2017 the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing him in its citation as a writer “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.

The play has seven performances at the Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, March 26 to 30, including an audio described and captioned performance March 30 at 3pm, with an optional touch tour at 2pm.

These performances are sponsored by Ashtons Legal.

Tickets are on sale at the Box Office, call 01284 769505, book online at www.theatreroyal.org/shows/the-remains-of-the-day/ or visit the theatre in person.