formidAbility in collaboration with Signdance Collective International present

Hotspur / Pierrot Lunaire

Music by Gillian Whitehead / Arnold Schoenberg
Libretto by Fleur Adcock / Albert Giraud

Director Sara Brodie
Music Director Scott Wilson

In 14th-century Northumberland, Elizabeth waits on the fringes of civil war while her husband – the famously-volatile Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy – leads a rebel force against the King. Following the world premiere of Iris Dreaming at Grimeborn 2016, Dame Gillian Whitehead and Fleur Adcock‘s Hotspur is a passionate depiction of a woman torn between public confidence and private despair in the face of devastating loss.

Sung in English with Signdance.


Following the moonlit wanderings of the melancholy clown as he yearns for his lover and seeks poetic inspiration, the poignant world of Pierrot Lunaire is brought to life in a new staging from Sara Brodie. Darkly comic, expressionistic and with hints of cabaret, Schoenberg‘s iconic melodrama is one of the most influential musical works of the twentieth century.

Sung in German with Signdance and English surtitles.

CLICK HERE TO READ A SYNOPSIS OF THE PERFORMANCE.