The dense, insistent gravitational tug that pulls everything and everyone into the orbit of cancer. Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies Cancer is still a taboo. The fight against the disease is deeply rooted in the public imagination: together we are funding charities, wearing pink ribbons and racing for life. But cancer itself is spoken about in whispers. Recovery is most often described as a successful 'fight' - we praise 'survivors' and promise 'cancer, we're coming to get you!' But w hat about those who don't want to fight, who prefer to share their grief openly, who see treatment as a negotiation? And what about the ongoing struggle that can follow 'survival'? International touring theatre company Complicite and award-winning performance artist Bryony Kimmings want to talk about cancer - warts and all. They will create the first large scale theatre production that speaks about this 'emperor of all maladies' openly, honestly and in an uplifting and entertaining way. To come to terms with cancer, we need to understand it: its complexities, its logic, its mystery and its amazing survival as the most complicated disease humanity has ever known. As a first step towards creating this production and beginning a new dialogue, Kimmings, Valerie Beral and Complicite will spend five weeks in intensive research and development. They will bring together leading scientists and experimental artists to explore the disease from all angles, laying the groundwork for a musi cal, funny, provocative and life-affirming show - a sideways look at a subject we all fear.