The Argus: Brighton Festival ThumbThe number of political prisoners incarcerated in Burma currently stands at over 2000.

Richard Shannon’s 2006 play The Lady Of Burma focuses on just one – the general secretary for the National League For Democracy (NLD) and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sun Suu Kyi – whose prolonged house arrest by the country’s military junta sparked worldwide condemnation.

Originally ending the play with a harrowing description of th events that occurred during the Depayin Massacre – an ambush where 70 people associated with the NLD were killed by an alleged government sponsored horde – Shannon has returned to update his work to take into account Suu Kyi’s historic release in November last year.

With The Burma Campaign – an initiative dedicated to fighting for human rights, democracy and development in Burma – providing him with copies of Suu Kyi’s speeches and press releases, he aimed to write an ending that encompassed Suu Kyi’s own words.

“I wanted to make the point that although she may be out, the struggle is not over, and the whole structure of the new ending is designed to show that,” he explains.

Initially written as part of a fundraising evening for The Burma Campaign, The Lady Of Burma was originally intended to be aone-night only affair at London’s Old Vic.

Five years down the line, Shannon’s work has toured the UK and Europe, played to thousands at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and been translated into numerous different languages.

“I had a Burmese friend at university, but when we graduated I lost touch with her completely. Because of that connection, I kept reading the news whenever Burma was mentioned," Shannon explains.

"Working as an associate director for Polka Theatre for Children during a festival of new writing, I met actress Liana Gould and noticed she was the spitting image of Aung Sun. I told her the story and said I wanted to write a one-woman show for her.

“The Burma Campaign put me in touch with Vera Baird, an MP who was then in charge of the All-Party Burma Group, who said noone had written anything like this before and I should get on with it. From that moment on, every door opened – there was an incredible karma about the whole thing – people really wanted to see it happen!”

In writing and researching the play, Shannon had the opportunity to visit Burma and its people.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful but very tragic place. I’d been told to keep my mouth shut about why I was there but I eventually opened up to my guide. Having told him, there was one very sticky moment when he drove me into what I thought was a police station.

In fact it was a tobacco factory with armed guards,” he says.

“The people are wonderful – very open and friendly – but totally terrified. For me, on a political human rights level, it is so horrific what’s going on there that the more I know the more I get involved.”

Political actions and achievements aside, Suu Kyi’s personal story is an incredibly tragic one on many levels – her father was assassinated, she was unable to leave Burma to see her husband before his death and, up until very recently, she hadn’t seen her children for years.

Shannon’s intention in writing the play was to get “behind the mask” of her very contained and private life and sensitively tell that story.

“I was put in touch with her sister-in-law, who’s English [Suu Kyi married eminent Tibetan scholar and Oxford don Dr Michael Aris in 1972]. Initially they were quite worried as any connection she has with the West is used against her by the regime. I gained their trust after a while and they gave me access to some wonderful videos and some old letters.”

In Shannon’s mind, it is theatre’s ability to speak directly to the heart of an audience that makes it the perfect tool for raising people’s awareness to political and cultural issues.

Audiences have been moved, angered and motivated by The Lady Of Burma’s narrative, with post-show discussions throwing up a wide range of topics, including the circumstances of Suu Kyi’s departure from England and the notion of sacrifice.

“People’s reactions have been incredible, and Brighton Festival taking her as guest director is just so fantastic – I could not have hoped for anything on this scale in 2006,” he says.