ShellShock

With 14 original songs and a powerful storyline Tim Thomas's new musical is an exhilarating and ultimately uplifting story.

It is 1975. Britain is fighting a secret desert war. A soldier returns traumatised by his experiences. His wife and daughter struggle to come to terms with his despair. As an escape his little girl remembers how he used to be, the perfect Dad, big and strong, hilarious and wild. It is very much about her, about growing up and seeing the world in all its complexity.

But another story intertwines with this one. It has deep echoes of World War I and an awful secret which a woman has lived with in the intervening years. That war started a century ago and ShellShock is one of the world-wide events which will commemorate those shattering hostilities.

The story of the musical was inspired by a conversation between the writer Tim Thomas and his grandmother when he was just a small boy. Like all of her generation she endured that terrible time and he was transfixed by the tale of hope that she told.