Weaving contemporary theatre with folktale and Chinese storytelling Message In A Bottle is a play by Amy Lever exploring the infamous forced secret deportation of Chinese sailors, intergenerational trauma and buried secrets. 

Amy Lever is an award-winning writer/actor from Manchester. As a writer her work includes the award-winning, five-star reviewed “Life Before the Line” (Cambridge University Edinburgh Fringe Prize). She was named runner up for the Alpine Fellowship Prize for Playwriting, a finalist for the Channel 4 Writing for TV Awards, selected for Channel 4 x New Writing North Development Scheme and was a part of The Warner Bros Writers Exchange Programme with Warner Bros, The Royal Exchange and Wall to Wall.

In 1945, Liverpool, Fang Ninghao, a Chinese seafarer posted in Liverpool during the Second World War tries to plan his future with Emma, the local girl he loves. That is until Ninghao disappears without a trace the night before their wedding.

In 2006, every night Jasmine sleepwalks to the closest body of water she can find. A river. A pond. A canal. Just like her mother did before her. Her mother who wouldn’t stop until it was too late. The only way to break the curse is to find out the truth…