The Afronauts

A world premiere by Ryan Calais Cameron, staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London, following a Zambian schoolteacher who trains a group of unlikely dreamers for a space launch in 1964.

The Afronauts is a new play by Ryan Calais Cameron, the Sky Arts Award-winning playwright whose earlier works include For Black Boys and Retrograde. Set in Zambia in 1964, it follows a schoolteacher who gathers a band of unlikely dreamers and prepares them for lift-off at a moment when the world's leading powers are racing to reach the moon.

The story is loosely based on the Zambian space programme and on a nation's determination to look upward at a time of political change. Cameron describes the work as a tribute to dreamers overlooked by history, in which imagination becomes a form of resistance and the fight for freedom is as much cosmic as it is political.

The production is presented at the Royal Court Theatre, a London venue that hosts a range of shows throughout the year. The run includes captioned, audio-described and chilled performances, giving audiences with different access needs more ways to attend.