Gillian Tan

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play for High Tide, directed by Chinonyerem Odimba — who also directed Black Love — touring the east of England and beyond. Two sisters. The English Channel. The hardest open-water swim in the world. The play moves forwards and backwards in time across the 21 miles between Dover and Calais, grief and joy and 90s pop songs and the sheer physical fact of cold water.

The design is built around the sea: wheeling oceanic projections that make the crossing present onstage — the 21 miles between Dover and Calais dramatised as the arduous, relentless physical fact it is. The lighting and video work together to hold the grief and the body and the distance all at once.