Hope and Joy & The Return. Ellie Stewart

Hope and Joy Hope’s labour is unusual and uneggspected. Happily, nothing fazes Joy, the hospital cleaner who helps her to escape. Then Joy is sacked from her job and she moves in with Hope and her swan-boy son, Magnus. Their lives collide in chaos – can they survive this shifting world?A deeply original play that explores love and loss in a changing environment, imagining Scotland in a time much like ours, but not quite. The Return France, 1560. In the foothills of the Pyrenees, Bertrande tends to her livestock and raises her young son, seven years after her husband disappeared. One day, a stranger, Arnaud, walks into her life and before long they decide to present him to the world as her long-lost husband. But is it possible that he really is her husband?Inspired by the true story of Martin Guerre, The Return is a gripping play about the mystery of identity, and asks whether we can ever truly know even those we love best.