AS part of its ongoing commitment to bringing ground breaking theatre to Otley, The Courthouse next month brings the Edinburgh Festival and Broadway to West Yorkshire by welcoming Lung Theatre, Pentabus Theatre and Paines Plough.

On Friday, September 9 at 8pm, Lung Theatre will present their production The 56. At 3.40pm on May 11th 1985, a small fire broke out in the main stand at Valley Parade football ground during the final match of the season. Within four minutes the wooden structure was ablaze. Fifty-four Bradford City supporters and two Lincoln City supporters lost their lives. This unique theatrical experience provides a truthful retelling of stories of those involved in the Bradford City fire. Adapted solely from real life testimonies and interviews with witnesses, this is a piece of powerful and moving documentary theatre. Tickets are £11/9. Suitable for ages 13+ Lung Theatre are currently receiving rave reviews at this year’s Edinburgh Festival for their two other productions E15 and Dolly Wants to Die so The 56 promises to be a great evening.

Then on Saturday,September 24 at 8pm, Paines Plough & Pentabus Theatre present Every Brilliant Thing. You’re six years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy. So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for. 1. Ice Cream, 2. Kung Fu Movies, 3. Burning Things, 4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose, 5. Construction cranes, 6. Me.

You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own.

Every Brilliant Thing is a new play by Duncan Macmillan, a Bruntwood award-winning playwright. It is an interactive piece of theatre and a unique experience involving members of the audience. It centres on the subject of depression depicted in a dynamic and accessible way delivered with great comedic timing by a well-known comedic talent in Jonny Donahoe.

It’s 2014 tour and run at The Edinburgh Festival received a great reception from both audiences and critics and subsequently transferred to New York in a 16 week off-Broadway run. It is co-produced by Paines Plough, the UK’s leading new writing touring company at the forefront of finding bold new writing, directing and acting talent with Pentabus Theatre – the nation’s leading rural touring company.

Every Brilliant Thing is supported by Anne McMeehan and Jim Roberts and was developed with the support of Nabokov and the Jersey Arts Trust. Starring Jonny Donahoe, a British comedian, writer and performer best known for his comedy band Jonny and the Baptists who have made regular appearances on BBC Radio 4, this is a chance to see contemporary theatre in an intimate environment. Tickets are £11/9, suitable for ages 14+.

To book tickets for all of these events, visit www.otleycourthouse.org.uk, call our box office on 01943 467466 or pop into the Courthouse on Courthouse Street, Otley, LS21 3AN.