Today
Robert Holman's play Today is a panoramic study of life, desire and the search for a fundamental self, set against the backdrop of Depression-era England and the Spanish Civil War. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 23 October 1984. The play opens in Guisborough in North Yorkshire in 1936, where music teacher and aspiring composer Victor Ellison crosses paths with manual labourer Richard Hurll who, after two and a half years without work, has set out from Newcastle to walk to Whitby in search of his twin brother Ernest, and the chance of paid work. The play's action circles around the Ellison family, including a flashback to Victor's days at King's College, Cambridge, in the 1920s, and on to the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War in Act Two, where courage, idealism and solidarity are tested in the furnace of conflict. The premiere production was directed by Bill Alexander and performed by Penny Downie, Roger Allam, David Whitaker, George Raistrick, Amanda Root, Jimmy Yuill, Rowena Roberts, Donald McKillop, Kelly Gregory, Charlotte Williams, James Simmons, Polly James, Simon Templeman, Jim Hooper and Katharine Rogers.