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By Mick Jackson, adapted for the stage by Nick WoodStage adaptation of Mick Jackson's celebrated novel (1997), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and winner of the Royal Society of Authors' First Novel Award.
Adapted by Nick Wood, critically acclaimed playwright and bestselling author of A Girl With A Book and Other Plays; his works are performed extensively in the UK, USA and Europe.
Co-produced by Nottingham Playhouse (co-producer of the critically acclaimed stage version of 1984) and Nick Wood's AJTC (A Girl with a Book).
A life of fascination, obsession and deep scientific curiosity.
William Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck is an eccentric Nottinghamshire aristocrat whose imagination and curiosity know no bounds. This deceptively simple man struggles to come to terms with a world that is teeming with new knowledge, ill-founded opinion and gossip.
Why does he hide himself away? What is his fascination with tunnels? Will he ever unearth the secrets hidden in his memory?
In a sequence of events that are often curious and frequently hilarious, he reveals moments of surprising perception and wisdom. The Underground Man is a delectable blend of fact and fiction in which the intriguing details of a complex life are richly explored through the vibrant imagination of a gentle soul.
About the author
Mick Jackson was born in Great Harwood, Lancashire. He studied drama at Dartington College of Arts, Devon and was a singer in a band through his 20s. Between 1991-92 he attended the Creative Writing MA course at the University of East Anglia where his tutors were Malcolm Bradbury, Rose Tremain and Michele Roberts. His first novel, The Underground Man, written in Cambridge and London, whilst Jackson worked part-time as a special needs assistant and is a fictional version of the life of the fifth Duke of Portland, an English eccentric, renowned for creating a network of tunnels under his estate at Welbeck Abbey. It was originally published by Picador in 1997 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Royal Society of Authors' First Novel Award.
Summary
Nick Wood's stage adaptation of Mick Jackson's Booker Prize shortlisted novel.
