York theatre director, actor and writer Paul Osborne’s one-act play The Bluest Blue has been selected for performance at the Manchester 24:7 Theatre Festival.

The play originated as a short scene in a Script Factor event at York Theatre Royal last November and will be performed by York’s own Old Bomb Theatre Company during the festival run from July 26 to August 1. Additional performances are planned at 41 Monkgate, York, from August 5 to 7, with further details to be announced soon.

In The Bluest Blue a young bookseller is tackled by a predatory traffic warden and a street cleaner sweeps up the pieces, but is the ticket-toting enforcer really who she says she is? All will be revealed in a comic and compelling tale of loss and desire that stretches from the tourist traps of York to a Barnsley housing estate. “This is my first play and I’m so excited that it’s one of only ten plays chosen from well over 100 submitted,” says Paul. “I’ve directed and acted in plays before but I’ve come to realise that the writing is the sharp end of the creative process.

“I wanted to write a play that celebrated people’s pride in Yorkshire, but I also wanted to explore how people change when they’re not on their own territory.”

Paul Stonehouse will direct the cast of Alan Booty, Tom Gladstone and Hannah Dee, while Jon Hughes and Matt Edwards will join the production team behind Old Bomb’s production of Cigarettes And Chocolate in the Theatre Royal Studio earlier this year.

More details of the 24:7 Theatre Festival can be found at 247theatrefestival.co.uk