No Horizon
Halifax Viaduct Theatre from Tuesday March 26 to Thursday March 28
An original new musical which tells the forgotten story of a Yorkshire genius is coming to the Halifax Viaduct Theatre after a decade in the making. No Horizon is inspired by the life of Nicholas Saunderson, a blind scientist and mathematician from Yorkshire who overcame impossible odds to become a Cambridge Professor and friend of royalty. Saunderson is often described as an 18th century Stephen Hawking. The musical ran at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2016 to critical acclaim and has been adapted for a tour by Right Hand Theatre. The show has been described by Elaine Paige OBE as, “one to watch out for”.
No Horizon was first written in 2003 by Andy Platt, a former headmaster who rediscovered Saunderson’s remarkable journey after it was forgotten by history.
The lead role of Saunderson is played by Adam Martyn from Doncaster, who is partially sighted.
Adam trained professionally as an actor at Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. Saunderson was born in 1682 at Thurlstone near Barnsley and at the age of one was blinded by smallpox.
In an era before Braille, it is thought he taught himself to read by running his fingers over the gravestones in a local churchyard. He learned Latin and Greek and became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post also held by Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage and Stephen Hawking.
In his day he met with kings and queens and had a reputation which spread across Europe. Remarkably, his field of expertise was not in mathematical equations, but in lecturing about optics.
It is thought that
Saunderson may have been the earliest discoverer of Bayes’ theorem, a mathematical formula for determining conditional probability. Saunderson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Andy Platt, writer and producer of No Horizon, said: “Saunderson’s achievement as the Stephen Hawking of his day was phenomenal. I wanted No Horizon to entertain and move the audience at the same time as restoring Saunderson to his rightful place as a national icon. The tour is the culmination of a 15-year dream.”
Adam Martyn