Award-Winning Night Waking Gets Stage Adaptation

Based on the novel by Sarah Moss,Night Waking is a new one-woman stage adaptation by Shireen Mula (Why Is The Sky Blue?, Southwark Playhouse) tracing the restless mind of a woman at breaking point. This enigmatic show follows a historian consumed by maternal ambivalence, historical silences and a creeping sense that what she’s studying might be closer to home than she realised. Directed by Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of An Tobar and Mull, the production opens on the Isle of Mull before touring across Scotland and beyond.

Set on a remote Hebridean island,Night Waking follows Anna Bennett, a sleep-deprived historian and mother, struggling to complete her research while caring for two young children. Her husband, an ornithologist, is often away monitoring puffins. The isolation and lack of sleep begin to take their toll—until Anna and her eldest son discover something buried in the garden. The past begins to intrude on the present in unexpected and disturbing ways.

Sarah Moss, author of Night Waking comments,It’s at once uncanny and delightful to see my novel, and especially my narrator, take a new form on stage. I love the way the one-person show intensifies the book’s interest in interiority, reliability and all the voices in the scholar-mother’s mind.

The play moves between contemporary domestic life and fragments of historical correspondence. As Anna attempts to piece together the mystery she uncovers, the production explores questions of motherhood, colonial legacy and what it means to live with inherited histories.

Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, comments,What excites me about Night Wakingis the way it speaks the unspeakable parts of motherhood—the exhaustion, the fear, the isolation—and does so with wit, sharpness and emotional clarity. But what makes it truly remarkable is how it also unearths the buried legacies of empire and colonialism in Scotland. It’s a play that asks big questions about who gets remembered and who gets forgotten, and how the past haunts our present—personally and politically. It’s unsettling, intelligent, and deeply human. I’m incredibly proud to bring this story to audiences across the country.

Night Waking captures the raw tension between academic detachment and maternal unravelling. Flickering between biting humour and unbearable tension, this solo performance is an urgent portrait of modern womanhood—told through the lens of deep time, buried secrets and sleepless rage.

Website: www.antobarandmulltheatre.co.uk

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