In the most extensive tour of the region to date the British Council is supporting the Traverse Theatre Company’s tour of five Balkan countries in four weeks.

From 22 September to 17 October the Traverse Theatre Company will take its production of The People Next Door to:

• Serbia
• Macedonia
• Kosovo
• Bosnia
• Croatia

The programme in the Balkans includes full performances and workshops with local partners.

The premiere of the play by Scottish playwright Henry Adam took place during the 2003 Edinburgh Festival and was included in our biannual Performing Arts Showcase. The play then toured to venues in Scotland, England and Germany in the spring of this year.

Dealing with issues of racism, terrorism and the nature of community, the award winning play is a darkly comic drama about what happens when someone else’s global problem becomes your local one. Now it will play in cities across the former Yugoslavia, where Henry Adam’s sharp observations on the nature of prejudice, fear and conflict will have particular resonance.

Arjeta Emra, Director of the British Council in Kosovo, is confident that, in these exciting times, a play like The People Next Door is destined to be very well received. She said:

“Kosovo is a very political society, quite understandably considering everything that happened here. When I first saw The People Next Door in Edinburgh last year as part of the British Council Showcase it was the only show I really wanted to bring to Kosovo.”

The Traverse Theatre Company will be performing in Kosovo in the same month as the UN-administered territory holds elections for its National Assembly, which are due to take place on Saturday 23 October.

Lorne Campbell, the Traverse Theatre’s staff director, who will be accompanying the cast on tour, said:  

“The opportunity to tour a show is always exciting, to tour internationally doubly so, however, the chance to be the first western company to perform in some cities since the war and to take a play like The People Next Door into Kosovo, where the tensions that lie at the heart of the work are so remarkably apposite to the people and place is truly remarkable.”

This pioneering tour represents the first time that the British Council has mounted performing arts events in Shtip (Macedonia), Gjakova (Kosovo) and Čakovec (Croatia). In addition the arrival of the play in Prishtina and Gjakova in Kosovo makes this the biggest UK theatre event we have organised in this region.

Email art.scotland@britishcouncil.org or telephone +44 (0)131 524 5714 for more information.