Glass Eels

Late August down on the Somerset levels: deep in the water and the silt, something is moving, unfurling...

During a heady hot summer, a young girl's sexual awakening is coloured by shadows of her early childhood. This work dramatises the unconscious world of instinct where the lives of humans, plants and eels are all ruled by the primal rhythms of the wetlands.Late August heat, still and heavy, down on the Somerset Levels. A land of water and silt and mud and eels. Something is moving. Unfurling...During a heady hot summer, a young girl's sexual awakening is coloured by shadows of her early childhood. Written with Leyshon's characteristic stark lyricism and suffused with the austere poetry of the West Country, "Glass Eels" dramatises the unconscious world of instinct where the lives of humans, plants and eels are all ruled by the primal rhythms of the wetlands. It opens at the Hampstead Theatre in June 2007.