Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell

When Michael Bates makes a routine trip to the post office, he meets Beatrice – an impossibly enthusiastic postal worker, who takes him far beyond the confines of a mail room into the universe of her imagination. Powered by her infectious lust for life, Bea leads Michael on a journey to find something he never knew he had lost.

Fusing physical theatre with comedy and music, this absurd yet oh-so-believable human tale unfolds with delightful results.

First Class had an Edinburgh run in August 2009.

Press

"This curious and charming fable is glorious in its playful physicality" Time Out

"Our heroes and our Gods, under scrutiny, have become dwarves. As if that was something they could ever be. That we could ever allow. That's why we rail against the day’s passing, struggle to get in another word or action, because tomorrow … tomorrow we may not know where we stand. Not recognise ourselves when we stop to look."

Ad astra per aspera (a rough road leads to the stars):
Inscription at Launch Complex 34 at Kennedy Space Centre where all three crew members of the first Apollo spacecraft died in 1967.

Press

"If any further proof were necessary that small-scale productions have big ideas and can make them work, 'Pluto' provides it" www.londontheatre.co.uk

Out of Chaos re-imagines the tragic chorus and incorporates live music, clowning and physical theatre in a devised piece that draws on the international origins of the actors.

In the beginning, there was chaos. Then the Gods took that chaos and gave it an order. They made the world and some animals and everything went pretty well. But one day Prometheus made a new beast, and he raised it up onto two feet so it could look at the heavens. And that's when things started to kick off. Gods and mortals, parents and sons, sisters, lovers and strangers on the Tube come head-to-head in a playful blend of Ancient Greek mythology and modern true stories, exploring the ways in which people fight and rage.

Out of Chaos had an Edinburgh run in August 2008

Winner:
Best Production at the International Act Festival, Bilbao 2008

Winner:
Audience Prize at 100° International Theatre Festival, Berlin 2008

A dynamic drama with strong, contemporary issues regarding faith, family and taboo, explored using wonderfully rich characters involved in a complex human story.

Queen Phaedra lies sick with incestuous love for her stepson Hippolytus. Told of her passion by her faithful nurse, Hippolytus rejects her. Pride, shame, lust, revenge, honour and love interweave culminating in a progressively sharp web of lies and unspoken truths that result only in death and tragedy.

Utilising the rhythm, images and language of the text to layer the play with rich movement, music and song, this new version draws out the elements of ritual and ceremony that are inherent in Euripides’s text and structure.

Press

‘This fast paced, imaginative piece of ensemble theatre leaves little to be desired and should not be missed by anyone.’ www.extraextra.org

Closed Circuit

• Writer: Sara Pascoe
• Director: Katie Lewis

Closed Circuit deals with the macrocosmic issues of city life through the microcosm of a central London sex-shop. The story is told through theatrical naturalism and stylised montages, creating a sensory and thought provoking reflection of the city and the lives we all inhabit.

Strange Land of Stars

• Writer: Emily Hunka
• Director: Emma Hewitt
• Cast: Simon Carroll-Jones, Brandy Doubleday, Laura Glover, Alex Watson & Ben Wigzell

A family celebrates. A stranger arrives at the door. Claiming to have a message, will he bring peace and goodwill or is he a dangerous threat waiting for the right moment to blow them apart? And in a nation obsessed with security, are they putting themselves at risk by letting the unknown in?

Strange Land of Stars asks: when do a country’s laws stop protecting its citizens and start persecuting them?

A new play about a land not too different from our own.

The Dada Suicides

• Writer: Afsaneh Gray
• Director: James Kermack
• Cast: Sophie Michaels & Robert Orme

Jacques Vaché, a friend of André Breton, acquired notoriety after he killed himself and a friend in Paris in 1919. Waking up on stage, he finds himself the unlikely subject for a play.

The Dada Suicides explores the fragility of the psyche from a place where all physical being is lost and only consciousness remains. With a Dada twist.

Golden Lads & Lasses Must

• Writer: Peter Lindley
• Director: Rebecca Tortora
• Lighting Designer: Jason Kirk
• Cast: Irene Bradshaw, Gerald Davidson, Rachel Halliwell, Jen Holt, Terry Jermyn, Lucy Le Messurier & Holly Strickland

London October 1998: Ted Hughes, the Poet Laureate, is dying of cancer. He slips in and out of consciousness, dreaming of Sylvia Plath, the one true love of his life, and the fateful weekend in 1963 when she committed suicide.

The Americans

Grey Light Theatre

• Writer: Matthew Freeman (one of nytheatre.com's People of the Year 2004)
• Director: Georgina Guy
• Designer: Hilary Statts
• Cast: Matthew Bulgo, William Fysh & Jack Farthing

Presented as part of Grey Light Productions' series of contemporary American writing, in conjunction with the New York Metropolitan Playhouse.

One young man sitting alone in his room writes a poem that in a moment of unexplainable magic causes his apartment to explode. In another part of town another young man finds his windows blown in by the blast. Downtown a third steps out onto the street to find himself covered with white plaster.

With the identity of their hometown and of themselves under scrutiny, all three begin a search for the source of the disaster.

A child born as a fish; a woman trying to escape her past; sailors lost at sea. Set in an unnamed harbour town, this bold new show puts a contemporary spin on old stories of the sea, colliding a cast of characters all searching for shelter in a world past redemption. Combining elements of magic realism and the grotesque, the company uses the tools of physical theatre, puppetry and live music to bring this darkly comic world to life.

Press

"The impressive and skilful ensemble who devised The Harbour were as flexible as their props. It can often be difficult to integrate dialogue with a physical performance as one discipline can conflict with the other; however The Harbour united both perfectly" www.britishtheatreguide.info