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Harris' Further Than Returns for Tricycle Run

Zinnie Harris' award-winning Further than the Furthest Thing returns to the capital next month in its first revival since its successful run last year at the National's Cottesloe Theatre. The play opens at the fringe Tricycle Theatre in north London on 24 May for a five week run to 23 June 2001 (previews from 22 May). In the new production, Paola Dionisotti reprises her acclaimed lead performance.

Harris' second play was inspired by the history of Tristan da Cunha, the tiny volcanic outpost of the British Empire in the south Atlantic. When the island's volcano began to erupt, the residents were evacuated to the Britain of the 1960s where they endured years of exile before finally being allowed back to their remote island home.

Originally staged at the Edinburgh Festival by the Tron Theatre Company, Glasgow in a co-production with the National, Further than the Furthest Thing subsequently transferred to London and received numerous accolades including the Peggy Ramsay Award and both the Evening Standard and Stage Best Actress awards for Dionisotti.

Dionisotti plays Mill Lavarello whose family in exile must face both the challenges of the present and the collective guilty secrets of the past. She is joined by Gary McInnes, who was also a member of the original cast, as well as newcomers David Burke, Mairead McKinney and Paul Shelley. The play is directed by Irina Brown, former artistic director of the Tron Theatre.

Harris' first play, By Many Wounds, was staged at the Hampstead Theatre in 1999. She is currently writer in residence at the RSC and under commission from Clean Break and the Royal Court and Traverse Theatres. Last year, at the age of 27, she became the youngest ever playwright to have a full production staged at the National with Further than the Furthest Thing. Harris' grandfather was the Anglican minister on Tristan da Cunha in the 1940s, and the play draws on her family's stories of island life.

- by Terri Paddock

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