In July 2008 the publisher Barefoot Books is launching its Young Fiction Programme with the publication of Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing. The book is based on the renowned Chinese flute-player Guo Yue’s experiences growing up in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution, as Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward dramatically altered life in China.

Horse + Bamboo are delighted to be working with Barefoot Books to create a new show closely based on the book. The production is expected to open at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester in early summer 2009. It will be directed by Alison Duddle, who has also created the stage-play; designed and with animations by Bob Frith plus music by Loz Kaye, with the direct involvement of Guo Yue himself.

Told through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy, Little Leap Forward describes how the descent of the Red Guards on Beijing during the summer of 1966 brought profound changes to Yue, who had previously spent his days flying kites with his friends and playing his flute to his beloved bird.

Little Leap Forward, which features art by Helen Cann, is a collaboration by flautist Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, a freelance writer and journalist, who live in London with their two children. They also teamed up to write an adult book, Music, Food and Love, a memoir of Guo Yue’s life that was published in 2006 and is due out in paperback from Piatkus Books in December.

THIS SHOW IS NOW BEING BOOKED FOR TOURING IN EARLY SUMMER 2009.

CONTACT Esther Ferry-Kennington:

esther@horseandbamboo.org