“…and the boys shouted I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU and their voice was the life and song of their mother. Unfinished. Beautiful. Everything.”

Two young boys fall back on their imaginations as they grapple with their mother’s sudden death. Their father has the soul of a poet but can only see a future of platitudes and loneliness. In the sadness, like a gothic Mary Poppins, comes Crow – trickster, babysitter, provocateur and healer. Did this odd bird come to a grieving family because they needed him? Or is he something they made?

Max Porter’s exquisite verse novel has been a literary sensation, garnering an ardent tribe of devotees. Now, in the expert hands of Simon Phillips, comes a fresh stage version full of theatricality and insight.

The dad in this story knows his Ted Hughes poetry well, and it’s from Hughes that the character of Crow emerges. The book has legions of fans, and after you’ve heard the mercurial Toby Schmitz tell this tale of loss and life, you’ll be in their ranks. It’s dark, then it’s beautifully bright. And you’re in the hands of some of the country’s most celebrated and experienced theatre makers. A gem. – Eamon