Nancy's Orange and The Butterfly Collector

Name: Nancy's Orange and The Butterfly Collector
Start: 2025-09-18T19:30:00+01:00
Location: The Beggar's Theatre, Market Square, LA18 4HZ Millom, United Kingdom

Schedule

Thu, 18 Sep, 2025 at 07:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

The Beggar's Theatre, Market Square, LA18 4HZ Millom, United Kingdom | Millom, EN

PMac productions and bigupnorth.
In this unique double-bill, two actor-writers, Grace Kirby and Peter Macqueen, perform their own one-person shows, each directed by the other.
Nancy’s Orange
In Nancy’s Orange, an NHS prescription driver delivers to patients who live in beautiful but remote rural locations. There are brief encounters on doorsteps, in kitchens and even on balconies revealing lives richly lived through stories of love, loss, sadness and joy.
“I thought it would be a nice little job, just me and Classic FM, no-one breathing down my neck and I can leave the work at home…”
But she finds she can’t. Through meetings with an unforgettable cast of characters – including Captain Underpants, a priestly imposter and a satnav with a mind of its own – she begins to question how we care for and perceive our elderly neighbours and invites us to do the same.
“Truth truth truth. Loved it thank you.”
“A roller coaster of emotion. I laughed, was moved close to tears and had goosebumps! I was thoroughly engrossed & entertained.”
The Butterfly Collector
As well as a successful actor and writer, Peter Macqueen is a keen amateur naturalist with a particular passion forbutterflies and moths. ‘The Butterfly Collector’ brings both these strands of his life together by exploring very personal experiences of the effects of climate change.He draws on childhood memories of happy holidays collecting butterflies (he uses a camera now!) and sets them against the drastic attempt to rescue that collection (and those memories) fifty years later, when Storm Desmond flooded more than 7,000 homes in Cumbria, including his own.
The play is set some time in the future a man sits on a chair, on a box, on a table eating a picnic. We are not sure why. He lives alone, away from “the new inland coastal towns and city outlies”. He talks about the butterflies of his past and we discover that he is part of a long line of butterfly collectors. Was his grandfather the reason the Black-veined White became extinct all those years ago? He tells moth jokes – “There are more moth jokes than butterfly ones. But then there are more moths than butterflies… even now.”
The door of his cottage smashes open with a loud bang downstairs interrupting his memories, and he climbs higher up his tower. This is not the first time the waters have risen – but never this far. Butterfly extinctions, floods, fires – is there a connection? Surely his grandfather wasn’t to blame for all that.
“A very moving, inspiring work… An enthralling performance.”
“Great booming voice, stage craft and variety bringing us into the story. Awesome work.”