Jenny Platt, Esh Alladi, Niki Angus Campbell, Okorie Chukwu, Tom Hodgkins, Haruka Kuroda, Julie Legrand

"I'm like a student and this is the final exam and I don't know what to put down because I don't understand the question and I'm running out of time."

Vivian Bearing.

A celebrated but exacting professor of metaphysical poetry, endeavouring to cope with experimental and aggressive treatment for an equally aggressive illness. A towering academic caught between metaphysics, medicine and her own mettle.

Confined to a hospital bed, with her life nearing its final chapter and the memory of her academia past as her coping mechanism, Vivian discovers grace, forgiveness and above all, her true self, in the nick of time.

Pulitzer-prize winning Wit is a striking and sharply funny reflection on the frailty of existence and the complex relationship between knowledge and love. They welcome back Julie Hesmondhalgh to play Vivian Bearing in director Raz Shaw's return to the Royal Exchange.