The Nervous State

A ground-breaking collaboration between Professor Julie V. Gottlieb and writer/director Nicola Baldwin dramatising ‘history from within’ developed at the University of Sheffield. 

In 1938 Peter Lucas – Cambridge scholar, playwright, political polemicist –is commissioned to write a journal of the year and records his travels, opinions, and frustration with British inaction aga of Hitler. Meanwhile his artist wife Prudie designs his play ‘The Lovers of Gudrun’, for the Stockport Garrick Theatre. As Czechoslovakia is occupied by Hitler and British PM Chamberlain refuses to act – with Peter consumed by politics and Prudie obsessed by Gudrun – fault lines in their personalities and marriage crack under pressure of impending war.

Part of The Nervous State Project - encompassing a film, play, documentaries and a forthcoming book, which bring together historians, writers, actors, history teachers and their students to explore ‘history from within’, with resources for teaching the History of Appeasement in schools.

Learn more about the project: www.statenervous.com