Presented by Lung Ha’s Theatre Company in collaboration with National Museums Scotland
For decades, Peter has been accumulating a vast array of everyday objects (the stuff of his life) and he has catalogued them all, down to the very last detail…at a great personal cost.
However the time has now come for Peter to bestow his collection to posterity, to the future and to the museum; and then to begin the search for the most precious thing of all…
The Hold is the poignant, lyrical and profoundly moving story of one man looking back over his life – but with a future still yet to be written. Peter, a man for whom holding onto every moment of his life has become a physical obsession, realises that letting go of the past is the only way he can look forward, and perhaps even find peace.
WRITER’S NOTE
Take a look around your own posessions. Which of these might one day be of great value, might be deemed worthy of a place on a museum’s shelf? If might be the thing you predict. Plastic toys from childhood are quickly classified as “collectables” these days, for instance.How about that scrap of paper you threw away with a shopping list scrawled on it? What might that have revealed to some future society where no one uses ink or paper anymore? In 2001, artist Michael Landy made an inventory of every item he owned (7,227 belongings), and then he destroyed them all. But what if there was someone who did just the opposite – who began to preserve every single tiny thing.
The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh: 12 – 16 March 2014
The Hold
Reviews
“Lung Ha’s Theatre Company has produced some memorable shows, over the years, in its work featuring adults with learning difficulties. Not since Huxley’s Lab in 2010, though, have they created a show that so perfectly matches the setting to the theme, and to the quality of the performers, as this beautiful 65-minute journey around the Museum of Scotland.”
Joyce McMillan – The Scotsman