Riding Lights executive director Ollie Brown, left, and artistic director Paul Birch
YORK theatre company Riding Lights has vowed that the show must go on after the theft of its van and set for 2026 Lent tour show Night Falls.
The van contained the entire set, costumes and technical equipment for artistic director Paul Birch’s fresh, vivid and dynamic retelling of the Easter story.
After weeks of preparation and the 31-date UK tour’s launch at The Lowry, Salford, the sudden, overnight disappearance of almost everything needed to stage Night Falls has left the company devastated at the loss yet determined that the tour will continue despite the setback.
Riding Lights Theatre Company actors Matthew Rutherford and Esther Atkins in Paul Birch’s Night Falls. Picture: Tom Jackson
Cast and crew returned to their Friargate Theatre base in York to begin work on rebuilding the production, sourcing replacement technical equipment, assembling an alternative set from the company’s warehouse and pulling together replacement costumes with support from suppliers and partners.
“The production may look different when it returns to the stage, but its story and message remain unchanged — a message of hope emerging from grief, and the belief that even in difficult moments, joy can follow,” says executive director Ollie Brown.
“We are truly devastated by this loss. Months of work disappeared overnight, but we are determined to pick ourselves up and carry on. The show will go on. We are already working hard to rebuild the production so we can get back on the road. We are moving mountains to make it happen.”
Matthew Rutherford and Esther Atkins in a scene from Riding Lights’s production of Paul Birch’s Night Falls. Picture: Tom Jackson
Riding Lights is asking for support from the public and the theatre community to help sustain the remaining tour dates and rebuild what has been lost. Donations can be made at www.ridinglights.org/donate.
Blending music and powerful drama, alongside space for reflection and worship, Birch’s new Passion Play covers the final four days before an execution that will change everything in a story of three enemies who want to put an end to the so-called Messiah, two strangers torn between faith and doubt, hope and grief, as they try to prevent Jesus of Nazareth from getting himself arrested, and one safe house in Bethany.
The hours are running out, but even as night falls, a strange hope is wrapped in a secret that both strangers share. For this is the house of Lazarus, and under his roof, the impossible has already occurred.
In the weeks ahead, Night Falls is booked to play Dorchester, Gloucester, Camberley, Ash, in Kent, Chelmsford, Lowestoft, Billericay, St Albans, Chiswick, Skegness, Stratford-upon-Avon, Croydon, St German’s Priory, in Cornwall, and Minehead on the tour’s closing day, April 6.
The poster for Riding Lights’ tour of Night Falls