Commissioned with funding from the Arts Council of England and Portsmouth City Council, Dead Rise & Tumble Home was the first part in the Heaven's Light trilogy, a series of plays exploring the city's relationship with the Royal Navy.
"A compelling new play" The News, Portsmouth ; "..an excellent script"
Dead Rise is the story of William Osborne, a Royal Navy captain, his sister Rose, and Joseph, an African whom William claims to have saved from shipwreck. William returns crippled to his home in Portsmouth. His growing dependence upon Joseph, and Joseph's complex relationship with Rose leads to conflict. In a second strand, the same characters reappear 200 years later as Portsmouth remembers the D-Day landings. Rose struggles to cope with her brother, and befriends a black electrician.
The play was later
adapted as Hush for BBC Radio 4, and into
German as Still for WestDeutscherRundfunk.