Resolution 

Resolution follows the remarkable achievements of Captain James Cook, the son of a farm-labourer, through a long and bitter feud with the British Admiralty’s Alexander Dalrymple, map-maker to the Royal Navy and celebrated Edinburgh gentleman. 

Dalrymple believed it was he, and not the working-class upstart Cook, who was destined to be the greatest sea-going explorer the British Empire had ever seen.  

"History is written by the victorious," Napoleon Bonaparte once said.  

Resolution tells of a history not written by the victorious, nor dismissed by the conquered, but rather a history seen as the greatest prize a man can possess - but a prize no two men can ever share. 

Two men. Two dreams. One prize. 

Award-winning PACT Productions, supported by Arts Council England, will tour their new stage-play Resolution to North Yorkshire in August 2019, reimagining the life and work of Captain James Cook as a bold and inventive mix of duty, conflict, and high adventure.  

Written by Rob Johnston, winner of the 2011 Kings Cross Award for New Writing and long-listed for the Royal Exchange Manchester’s 2017 Bruntwood Prize, Resolution will be staged in and around Whitby, the coastal town where James Cook spent his formative years training for a life at sea.