RIDING LIGHTS THEATRE COMPANY with YORK THEATRE ROYAL

the world premiere of

AFRICAN SNOW

by Murray Watts
directed by Paul Burbridge
music by Ben Okafor
designed by Sean Cavanagh
lighting design by Ben Cracknell

IN 1807 THERE WERE 4 MILLION PEOPLE IN SLAVERY WORLDWIDE
IN 2007 THERE ARE OVER 20 MILLION...

African Snow is the meeting of two men, cast from opposite sides into the hell of the slave trade – Olaudah Equiano, stolen from his home in West Africa, and John Newton, the converted slave-trader who later gave the world its most famous hymn, Amazing Grace.

Bringing them face to face, however, is perhaps beyond the scope of human reason. African Snow takes us to the heart of the human condition to the place where two men are compelled to confront one another. Can victim and abuser ever be reconciled?

African Snow is an epic and passionate piece of contemporary theatre marking the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, and exposing an unfinished business...

"Here’s a play that turns history into a pulsating human story. It could be yours. It could be mine. We begin to understand the past when we recognise that it is about real human beings like us. That way we better understand not only where we have come from but what we are doing now and where we are heading."
Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York