Behind every extraordinary feat are ordinary people. This is their story.

Fresh from a debut run off-Broadway, Lifeline is a new Scottish folk musical about one moment that changed history, and two love stories seventy years apart.

Lifeline is inspired by real historical events and real voices. Each performance features a different ensemble of nurses, doctors, vets, dentists and scientists, appearing alongside a professional cast, making every night genuinely unique. A celebration of the everyday people who make the extraordinary happen – and a heartfelt love letter to the medical community: past, present and future.

It’s 1950 and Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming is at the height of his fame. His discovery of penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, is being hailed as a miracle cure that will change medicine forever. But as friendship blossoms into love with Greek resistance fighter and scientist Amalia Voureka, Fleming is faced with a choice: hide away as “the man behind the mould” or embrace his future with Amalia.

In present-day Edinburgh, junior doctor Jess faces the unthinkable when her estranged childhood sweetheart, Aaron, is rushed to her hospital. As modern medicine collides with unresolved history, old feelings resurface, new battles are fought, and critical decisions must be made.

Featuring a six-piece band of violin, piano, guitar, bass, whistle and percussion, expect nostalgic folk sounds, foot-stomping Scottish rhythms and a score that soars effortlessly between light-hearted humour and moments of profound humanity.

After an acclaimed debut off-Broadway run, and after making history as the first musical to ever perform at the United Nations, this highly anticipated London premiere opens at Southwark Playhouse Elephant. Listen to the concept album now on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

THE JOURNEY SO FAR

LIFELINE is a two-time Edinburgh Festival Fringe sell-out (2018 and 2022). It ran Off-Broadway for 5-weeks at Signature Theatre on New York’s West 42nd St (Autumn 2024), during which time it became the first ever musical to perform on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly. LIFELINE has also been showcased across the globe with concert performances taking place at the UK Houses of Parliament, in Barbados for Prime Minister Mia Mottley, at the Vatican in Rome, along with events in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Kuala Lumpur.  Earlier versions of the show (under the title The Mould that Changed the World) toured to the east coast of the USA (2022), Glasgow (2022) and London (2018).

The show underwent significant re-development in 2023 to become LIFELINE, incorporating numerous modern day patient stories that the producers had collected from around the world.  A concept album of the re-invented show was released on NYC-based Center Stage Records in July 2024. The album features a cast of original cast members, friends from Broadway and chorus members from both the UK and USA.

WHAT IS AMR?

Five million people a year die from illness linked to antibiotic resistance. It just might be the biggest threat to humanity you have never heard of.

Antibiotics are drugs used to treat infections caused by bacteria and only bacteria. In the past eighty years they have saved millions of lives. Antibiotic resistance, a type of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), is a natural process allowing bacteria to evolve defenses that renders our drugs less effective. If we used antibiotics sensibly, only when we really needed them, we might have enough time to halt the spread of resistance through the population and develop new drugs to fight infection. 

Unfortunately, we overuse antibiotics to treat infections that might improve by themselves, that are caused by viruses, and we even use them to fatten animals raised in the meat industry. This overuse has led to the creation of superbugs, bacteria that are resistant to most or all of the antibiotics we throw at them. These resistant bacteria are now linked to about 5 million deaths globally every year. Without urgent action, this number is only going to rise.

THE LIFELINE PROJECT PODCAST

The Lifeline Project explores the science and the process behind the musical.

APPLE PODCASTS SPOTIFY