Schumann, by the young writer Sophia Kapsourou, emerged from the ‘Writer of the Month’ initiative to claim its place in the National’s repertory. It is a play about madness and genius, romanticism, the flow of defenceless rivers and of wild individuals, drawing its inspiration from the life of the great German composer, Robert Schumann.

The romantic hero is not a hero. Sometimes a coward, sometimes defenceless. Sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. Sometimes mad, sometimes a genius. Always in love. Always a poet. Always dangerous. Heroes walk a tightrope on linguistic musical scales. They fall in love in verse, separate in verse, die in verse. They go mad from the sound of an A, the note which is tuned to all the errors of the world.

‘As mistakes love repetition” so the characters in Schumann insist on living, achieving and being loved. Will they succeed? In romanticism, patience is no virtue.