Coronavirus: Donmar Warehouse to broadcast new online production of Midnight Your Time

An online revival of Adam Brace’s Midnight Your Time has been announced by the Donmar Warehouse, and will be streamed for free next month.

The play was first staged by HighTide Theatre in 2011, directed by Michael Longhurst and starring Diana Quick, and has been reconceived for online broadcast by the Donmar.

Longhurst and Quick have reunited for the new version of the play, which features the conversations between a retired lawyer in London and her daughter in Palestine.

Directed by Longhurst remotely, Midnight Your Time has been recorded at home on a webcam by Quick.

It will premiere on the Donmar’s YouTube channel on May 13, at 7:30, and will be available to watch for a week.

Longhurst said he had wanted to revive the play "as soon as lockdown began".

"Adam’s prescient presentation of a then-burgeoning method of digital
communication is so entirely a part of our lives under lockdown; and its commentary on ageing and isolation resonate even more profoundly at this time. It has been a privilege to revisit the role of Judy with Diana – a formidable and funny retired European lawyer, struggling to understand why her refrain of ‘drop us a line and stay safe’ is falling on deaf ears - and a delight to capture her performance in this new medium and in the intimacy of her own home."

The Donmar has been closed since March 16, with performances of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, cancelled and two further productions and its new Donmar Lates programme both all postponed.

Longhurst added that he was "determined that the Donmar continue to tell important stories that offer us connection in this moment when we cannot gather together in our theatre".