THE BOOKBINDER OF JERICHO

About the show

The playwright and creative team behind the national theatrical phenomenon The Dictionary of Lost Words reunite to bring Pip Williams’ beloved companion novel The Bookbinder of Jericho to the stage in this hotly anticipated world premiere. The Bookbinder of Jericho transports audiences to Oxford, where working-class twins Peggy and Maude live on a narrowboat at the advent of the First World War. The sisters work at the university press binding books, but whip-smart Peggy hankers for more. Her boss is always catching her reading the books instead of binding them. Peggy gazes longingly across the street to Oxford’s Somerville College, where girls her own age are free to spend their days reading in the library. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another life, one in which she can use her brains instead of her fingers. But will her love for a Belgian soldier be her salvation or her downfall? Working on an epic canvas, playwright Verity Laughton and a stellar team once again harness “soaring technical design” (Time Out) to bring a little-known slice of history alive in astonishing detail, shining a celebratory light on these women in their time and the words they live by.