Stephen Poliakoff’s TV dramas often explore the impact of memory and family history in the present day, but BREAKING THE SILENCE tackles these themes directly, immersing the audience in a historical situation so remarkable that it would seem fantastical were it not grounded in fact. To borrow another Poliakoff title, the play’s characters are quite literally "caught on a train", with the action confined to the interior of a run-down imperial carriage, even as it roves thousands of miles across post-revolutionary Russia.

Eminently bourgeois, and Jewish to boot, the Pesiakoff family manage precariously to survive under the Bolshevik regime thanks to Nikolai’s technological prowess. Assigned the post of telephone inspector, he clatters across the Soviet Union with his family and their maid Polya, supposedly supervising the installation of telephone wires. It is a duty he assiduously ignores. Unflappable, infuriating and immaculately dressed, Nikolai pursues instead his private ambition: to be first in the world to record sound on film. While the nation descends into turmoil, his family discover their own powers of invention, with his wife Eugenia falsifying the records he is ordered to keep. But the rise of Stalin brings matters to a head, and son Sasha plays a decisive role as Nikolai is caught unbearably between fleeing the country or fulfilling his life’s ambition.

Philip Bretherton plays the indomitable Nikolai. Perhaps best known as Alistair Deacon in the long-running sitcom As Time Goes By, alongside Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer, Philip will also be recognised as Coronation Street’s philandering businessman Ian Davenport and ice-cool manager Stefan Hauser in Footballers’ Wives. Playing Eugenia is Diana Kent, who has had screen roles in everything from Bergerac to Billy Elliot, Heavenly Creatures to New Tricks, and among many theatre credits was in the original cast of Stephen Daldry’s landmark production of An Inspector Calls. Celia Meiras plays the formidable family maid Polya, towards whom the balance of power inexorably tilts, and Ilan Goodman is Sasha, maturing from spoiled boy to self-possessed young man. Party official Verkoff is played by Owen Aaronovitch, who once portrayed Jon Lindsay, the Coronation Street conman whose fraud sent Deirdre to prison. Finally, Jim Findley and Jonathan Wright, both familiar to Playhouse audiences, are two guards with a pivotal role in the Pesiakoffs’ fortunes.

Multiple award-winning dramatist Stephen Poliakoff was born in London in 1952, of Russian descent. His paternal grandfather helped to build Moscow’s first automated telephone exchange; moving to England, he and his son founded an electronics company responsible for inventing the hospital pager. Poliakoff’s own talent emerged early: a school play he wrote at 15 was warmly reviewed in The Times. A host of stage works followed, with Poliakoff named Most Promising Playwright (1976) and appointed Writer in Residence at the National Theatre. Simultaneously he began writing for the screen, including the BBC’s Play for Today strand. Caught on a Train, starring Peggy Ashcroft, was a BAFTA winner in 1980 and a succession of national and international awards have greeted Poliakoff’s works ever since. Among the best known are the cinema release Close My Eyes (1991) and the television dramas Shooting the Past (1999), Perfect Strangers (2001), The Lost Prince, which won three Emmys (2003), Friends and Crocodiles and Gideon’s Daughter (2006), and Joe’s Palace and Capturing Mary (2007).

Director Esther Richardson is fascinated by the themes of identity and self-discovery which emerge in Breaking the Silence. Currently Associate Artist at the Soho Theatre in London, Esther was previously Assistant Dramaturg at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the founding director of Theatre Writing Partnership, which supports the development of new theatre writing throughout the East Midlands. Her last mainstage production at Nottingham Playhouse was Satin ‘n’ Steel by Amanda Whittington, praised for its combination of popular appeal with psychological insight and sensitivity.

A play about invention has an appropriate Designer in Jamie Vartan, in international demand for both theatre and opera work. Renowned for extending the possibilities of the acting space, Jamie has previously created several innovative spectacles at the Playhouse: a mountainside with climbers abseiling from the Circle (Because It’s There); a nightmarish subterranean pit revealed beneath the forestage (Angels Among the Trees); and a massive oak tree-cum-heavenly elevator (Old Big ’Ead in The Spirit of the Man). He responds to the single set of Breaking the Silence with an artfully engineered railway carriage capable of some striking surprises, with sliding screens alluding to the hero’s cinematic ambitions. James Farncombe contributes lighting design, sound is by Stuart Briner and movement by Vik Sivalingam.

Commissioned by the RSC, Breaking the Silence premiered at the Barbican Pit in 1984, starring Daniel Massey, Juliet Stevenson and Gemma Jones; Alan Howard and Jenny Agutter joined Jones for its transfer to the Mermaid Theatre the following year. Nottingham Playhouse’s production is thought to be its first professional revival in this country.

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