Coram Boy

A heartbreaking tale of orphans, angels, murder and music - dramatised from the Whitbread Award-winning novel set in 18th-century England.

In 18th-century Gloucestershire, the evil Otis Gardner preys on unmarried mothers, promising to take their babies (and their money) to Thomas Corams hospital for foundling children. Instead, he buries the babies and pockets the loot.

But Otiss downfall is set in train when his half-witted son Meshak falls in love with a young girl, Melissa, and rescues the unwanted son she has had with a disgraced aristocrat. The child is brought up in Corams hospital, and proves to have inherited the startling musical gifts of his father - gifts that ultimately bring about his fathers redemption and a heartbreaking family reunion.

Helen Edmundsons adaptation of Jamila Gavins award-winning novel, Coram Boy, was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in 2005. It won the Time Out Live Award for Best Play.

A rich and almost Gothic drama- Philip Pullman