Beware of anyone who tries to sum up this stage version of Robert Anton Wilson‘s book Cosmic Trigger by Love and Will Productions because to get too much of a handle on this genuinely strange and wonderful production would diminish it. A play peopled by the likes of Aleister Crowley, William Burroughs, theatre pioneer Ken Campbell, the goddess Ishtar (summoned at the beginning of the play), and Timothy Leary is always going to promise something out of the ordinary. And it delivers in spades.

Courtesy of Cockpit Theatre.

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Faustaff is rather like a bad smell, uninviting and left somewhat of an unpleasant whiff. With a meagre ten audience members attending the performance, myself included, it doesn’t fill one with much hope. The space itself is set in the round and has a sort of warehouse/manufactured feel about it, not to forget the squeaky seats that give the impression of standing on a cat’s tail every time you attempted to move position. Feeling rather lonely on my own personal row I do not feel an ounce of excitement, or to be perfectly honest atmosphere in the room.

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As a teen growing up in the UK post 9/11, I was unsure as to how one of the most significant events of the early 21st century would impact on the daily lives of a nation distant, yet historically linked to the UK. An event forever etched on, I’m sure, the minds of most of us UK and U.S. citizens, I can remember exactly where I was as the tragedy struck, and what I was doing at the time, I had started my first week at secondary school.

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Offering an alternative to the glitzy world of Jazz hands, hollywood smiles and synchronised dance routines, Another Way, Composed by Benedict interweaves the lives of three pairs of people as they deal with the prospects of new relationships, heartbreak and success…

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Written in the 18th Century, Yuan Mei‘s Censored by Confucius: Ghost Stories created shockwaves within the puritanical world of the Qing Dynasty, as it approached taboo subjects such as corruption and revenge in a comical manner. This, combined with the fascination of the God of Thunder in Chinese culture form the basis for writer and directer Zhao Miao’s Thor of the Common Man…

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‘When the sand moves in the Desert and nobody’s there to hear it-does it make a sound?’ is a question asked by Spiralarts Dance Theatre Company in their 40 minute dance piece, exploring the many aspects of a seemingly quiet landscape. Serving as a projection situated upstage, this question acts as an underlying motif in this montage of choreographed sequences…

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