Computer games have gotten awfully clever these days. John Robertson’s one man show, The Dark Room, aims to remind us of a simpler, more frustrating time; a time when games carried no mandate to entertain or satisfy, when they roamed free from the dictates of logic or common sense. The Dark Room brings to life the word based computer games of the 80’s, reminding audiences of that very particular type of irritation that only crude software is able to produce.
Dot, Dot, Dot is a dance company made up of Magdalena Mannion, Yinka Esi Graves and Noemi Luz. This talented dance trio explore the layers of culture shaping our lives encapsulating a life journey through the art form of dance.
For some, it’s a case of living on the knife edge… that constant feeling of knowing that at any moment, you could breathe your last breath, constantly watching your back to protect not just yourself, but those you care most about. The Big House knuckle down on this fine line between life and death in their aptly named Knife Edge.
A theatre that invites a variety of work through its doors, produced by individual theatre companies, presents Voyager, a new devised show collaboratively created by Idle Motion. A devised show of a cast of five, Voyager, is an exploration into our nature using imagery and enlightened storytelling. Creatively presented, this show is inspired by the story of The Golden Record and the 1977 Voyager spacecraft, embarking on its journey of discovery.
‘We find a space in the margins of the city in which to gather: to start an ad-hoc ceremony, to stamp our feet and shake our limbs, to dance in the face of an ending… The music is the rider, and we are the running horses’
So states the poetic manifesto of Still House’s Al Fresco Urban movement experiment. The space is effectively a square of ground, delineated by the seating (one row on three sides, everyone else is standing) and lights at each of the four corners, the far side dominated by a small pavilion housing the live music. The effect is both electric and atmospheric, heightened by the subtle, carnivalesque lighting. After a short, hauntingly keening vocal intro, the drums begin to set up an exciting, throbbing beat. ‘Ok’, I think, ‘Here we go!’ Excitement mounts further, until a woman from the audience leaps up and begins throwing some fairly confident shapes all around the square. She is followed by four more, until, with a total of five twisting, surging figures, the troupe is complete. We are only five minutes in. The show has begun.
When a piece can shatter a stereotypical view and offer an unconventional lens to a situation, then you know what you are witnessing is of great importance. Theatre503 Writer in Residence, Brian Mullin delivers a powerhouse of a lead in the thought provoking We Wait in Joyful Hope.
To celebrate 3 years of Theatrefullstop this July, we are giving away a pair of tickets to Tess Berry-Hart’s Cargo, a timely piece of theatre placing a lense on the lengths people will go to to escape the horrors of their homelands in the hopes of improving their quality of life.
Playing at the Arcola Theatre from Wednesday 6th July until Saturday 6th August, Cargo promises to bring to light the humanity that lies beneath the heart breaking images witnessed on news reports on a daily basis and leave audiences feeling more connected to the sad realities of those who have no choice but to flee.
‘How do we learn? Why do we believe in the unbelievable? Why do we keep doing things that hurt us?’ These are, among others, just a few of the questions which Improbable Theatre Company attempt to tackle in their Mayfest entry, Opening Skinner’s Box. Based upon the popular and controversial book by Lauren Slater, the play runs through ten of the most influential psychological experiments of the 20th century. It tackles topics of drug addiction, relationships, memory, obedience, belief, among several others.
Words have the ability to inspire, teach, entertain, break hearts, anger, confuse… the list is endless. They are a currency all of their own, and arguably increase in value as we age. This is the primary manner in which as humans we communicate, and it is 2nd nature, we don’t question it. It’s a fact of life.
Wilting in reverse is Stuart Bowden’s evocative metaphor describing the figurative reanimation of a dead man (also, rather handily, named Stuart Bowden) from an imagined future reality. Before his demise in 2084, the man named Stuart Bowden was able to pen a short but powerful piece of theatre describing his final days on a distant planet in a small colony of humans who are rapidly running out of water.
