Travelling Light at the National Theatre

Nicholas Wright's new play, Travelling Light, stars Antony Sher as a famous American film director looking back on his early life in Eastern Europe.

Travelling Light at the National Theatre

Nicholas Wright's new play is a funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood's golden age.

In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father's cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their village, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. 

Forty years on, Motl, now a famous American film director, looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.

Antony Sher in Travelling Light

Award-winning actor Antony Sher plays Jacob.

Sher's extensive stage credits include Arthur Miller's Broken Glass in the West End, Tomas Stockmann in An Enemy of the People (Sheffield Crucible) and the title role in Kean (West End). 

His many leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company include Prospero, Iago, Macbeth, Leontes, Shylock, Tamburlaine, Tartuffe, Molière and Richard III for which he won the Evening Standard and Olivier Awards for Best Actor.

His many screen credits include Disraeli in Mrs Brown (Evening Standard Film Awards:  Peter Sellers Award for Comedy), Hitler in Churchill: The Hollywood Years, and Gerald Ballantyne in Home. A distinguished writer, novelist and artist, Antony Sher received a knighthood in 2000.

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