Pressgang, Oxford’s Contemporary Theatre specialists for 15 years, return to the Old Fire Station Theatre in December with an exciting, physical and visual re-telling of the Greek myth of Philomele and Tereus. Homer and Ovid both told the story, and Sophocles wrote a lost play on this startling parable of lust, revenge, and the battle of the sexes.

This adaptation is by the celebrated Timberlake Wertenbaker, whose Our Country’s Good (dealing with the first convicts in Australia) is now a modern classic. Pressgang presented one of the very first performances of Our Country’s Good outside London, hailed at the time (1990) by the Oxford Mail as “high quality performance... a great show”.

Wertenbaker’s version of The Love of the Nightingale has room for humour, poetry and horror: and she brings the Greek device of a chorus bang up-to-date. The Love of the Nightingale is a powerful experience for a modern audience, not a historical curiosity.

Pressgang’s ensemble has been developed over years, and contains numerous actors with professional theatre experience. The Love of the Nightingale is Pressgang’s 25th production.