Wartime twists on weird tales

Two new touring shows coming to the Unity are giving unique takes on wartime Britain with their very distinctive productions. London-based Pants On Fire theatre company will make their Liverpool debut next week with their critically acclaimed, award winning, "actor-musician extravaganza", Ovid’s Metamorphoses (production shot above).

Relocating Roman mythology to 1940’s wartime Britain, Ovids Metamorphoses blends puppetry, projection, live original music and song into an exploration of man’s inextricable link with nature and the universe.

Following on at the start of March is Worcester's Vamos theatre company and their "full-mask theatre production" of Nursing Lives, a comedy that blends together "visual inventiveness", music, song, physical theatre and 1940s dance sequences. And those rather weird-looking full masks, which I'm not sure might prove too off-putting for me (see below. Creepy). In 1939 Florence is a young trainee nurse thrown directly into the harsh realities of work on the ward. She encounters the wrath of Sister Martin, endures and enjoys the pranks of fellow nurses, falls in love with her soldier sweetheart, and confronts the inequalities in the use of the new super drug penicillin. Will her dream of saving lives come true?

Vamos’s artistic director Rachael Savage said: “The work originates from the true stories of nurses at the former Worcester Royal Infirmary however, at its heart, Nursing Lives is a human story that celebrates nurses at work and play during the years of World War II.” Ovid's Metamorphoses runs for two performances on Friday and Saturday, February 25 and 26. Nursing Lives is on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 1 and 2. For more information see  www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk.