Laura Horton and Theatre Royal Plymouth's production Breathless opens in The Drum next week 

“You can’t move simply between things. My flat is stuffed with possessions and the recollections I attach to them. I feel equally suffocated and sated by things.”

Theatre Royal Plymouth are delighted to bring Breathless by Laura Horton, Plymouth Laureate of Words, back to TRP next week, following a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where the play won a Fringe First and was a finalist for the Popcorn and BBC Writer’s Room Award. 

What happens when the things we covet hide us from ourselves? 

Opening up to new experiences in her late-thirties, Sophie is exploring long repressed sides of herself. When a secret she’s keeping from those she loves, and even from herself, threatens to unravel it all, she has to make a choice. Who or what will she decide to give up? 

Breathless is a funny, honest and stylish exploration of the knife-edge of hoarding, from the joy to the addiction, loneliness and suffocating shame. Based on writer Laura Horton’s own experience of clothes hoarding, the work is a dark, magical story about trying to escape a world you've spent a lifetime carefully building. 

Having previewed in The Lab at Theatre Royal Plymouth in July, Breathless is returning to the theatre for three performances in The Drum from next Monday (31 October) until Wednesday (2 November). 

In addition to the performance, Laura will be holding a clothes sale at Millfields HQ on Union Street on Sunday (30 October) from 10am – 3pm, selling the beautiful clothing, shoes and accessories she’s bought over the years, many of which are mentioned in the play. 

From vintage to designers including: Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, Whistles, Peter Pilotto, and many more. 

Laura said: “Bringing this play to life has been a really beautiful experience for me. As I’m on my journey to declutter my life, this feels like an apt moment to sell things and offer them new life. I spent decades travelling to sample sales and collecting things, much of which I was waiting to wear – I don’t feel the need to do that now. I’ll use the money I make to put straight back into my writing career, which was always my dream.”

Tickets for Breathless can be purchased through the Theatre Royal Plymouth website.