When: 11th June – 7th July 2018
Where: The Bunker, 53A Southwark Street London SE1 1RU
£: Tickets for each show cost £15 (standard), £12 (concessions) and £22 (double bill). Ten £10 tickets are available at each performance for under those under 30 years
What is it?
This summer, six emerging theatre companies will come together for Breaking Out, a new festival which will champion the most ambitious and innovative theatre work around at the moment. Breaking Out will feature plays, interactive theatre, electronic musicals and devised work, from Monday 11th June to Saturday 7th July.
Shows will include Poke in the Eye’s experimental production about a young woman navigating a world she can’t see and Second Circle Theatre’s interactive date night with a difference.
The full Breaking Out programme:
Poke in the Eye’s Libby’s Eyes
Poke in the Eye – Libby’s Eyes
Every Monday and Thursday at 7pm
The lights are up on Libby, a girl who can’t see. Libby is visually impaired, but she wants to function like everyone else. Her life suddenly changes when she takes on a dystopian world of Reasonable Adjustment Robots with no social skills and a government that categorises disabled people as ‘functioning’ and ‘non-functioning’. Written by disabled playwright Amy Bethan Evans, directed by Spencer Charles Noll and starring award-nominated comedian and actor Georgie Morrell, Libby’s Eyes examines the human relationships in life as a disabled person and what it truly means to function. This accessible production will be narrated by an audio describer.
Sleepless – Nine Foot Nine
Every Monday and Thursday at 8:30pm
Cara and Nate are a hard-working young couple looking to start a family. Together they’re bumbling through the daunting world of pregnancy tests, maternity clothes and flat pack cot building. That is, until suddenly, inexplicably, agonisingly, a vast proportion of all the women in the world start to grow; centimetre by centimetre, foot by foot, with science powerless to stop them. The awareness that women are now physically more powerful than men sends shockwaves through society, fracturing age-old assumptions and prejudices. How do political regimes react? What will happen to industry, media, families, sex? And, more importantly, what comes next? Brought to life by Sleepless Theatre Company, this innovative new play examines the changing labels of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ and a world where the gender balance is forever altered. Sleepless’ ethos is to offer an inclusive, accessible environment for all. In this vein, Nine Foot Nine will be fully captioned throughout the run.
This Noise – No One is Coming to Save You
Every Tuesday and Friday at 7pm
An insomniac is watching TV in a language he doesn’t understand; a woman is stood in a garden stretching her arms to the sky. The whole world is asleep and something extraordinary is about to happen. No One Is Coming to Save You is the hypnotic story of two young lives lived in social, political and economic fear. Starring Rudolphe Mdlongwa and Agatha Elwes, it’s a strange, funny exploration of what we’re waiting for and why we’re waiting. Supported by Arts Council England, This Noise makes experimental theatre about the politics of the here and now.
Paper Creatures’ Section 2 (Image courtesy: Monika Jastrzebska)
Paper Creatures – Section 2
Every Tuesday and Friday at 8:30pm
Following their successful debut show Flood, Paper Creatures Theatre return with this hard-hitting drama by emerging playwright Peter Imms. Directed by Georgie Staight (Into The Numbers, Finborough Theatre) and with an original score composed by Benjamin Winter, this part verbatim drama hones in on an aspect of mental health that is rarely addressed in theatre; sectioning. Drawn from Imms’ personal experience of his childhood friend being sectioned under the mental health act, Section 2 explores what it means to be sectioned and how we process and aid the recovery of those afflicted. Paper Creatures have worked with mental health charity Mind on the script development of this production to make sure the content of the play is accurate and truthful to the situation.
Second Circle Theatre – Kiss Chase
Every Wednesday and Saturday at 7pm
Kiss Chase is a part-interactive, part-verbatim speed dating event, exploring the barriers many of us face when forming relationships with family, friends, or partners. Inspired by real stories of overcoming the isolation of infidelity, social anxiety, abandonment or realising your parents are not the superheroes you once thought, Kiss Chase is a chance to look each other in the face in the centre of the loneliness capital of Europe: London. Starring Hannah Samuels, Zoe Gibbons, Scott Barker, Jon McKenna and Peyvand Sadeghian, you should expect to swap chairs, whisper secrets or maybe even find the love of your life! Second Circle Theatre is made up of three core theatremakers who create and self-produce the shows, united by the desire to create honest, visceral theatre in intimate and unique spaces.
leoe&hyde – GUY: A New Musical
Every Wednesday and Saturday at 8:30pm
Guy, a shy and overweight millennial, is failing in the departments of mates and dates and fun; dating apps can be cruel if you don’t look like a model. When he’s ghosted by his Romeo, he tries to follow the latest 11-step listicle to get noticed: diets, exercise regimes, and a new wardrobe… but can he resist the temptation of being someone else when the chance is literally at his fingertips? Starring The X-Factor finalist Seann Miley Moore, GUY is a game-changing gay rom-com for the 2010s. With nakedly honest characters, Guy is an unapologetically moving portrayal of the hook-ups and downs of 21st-century dating and a thought-provoking glimpse behind the veil of modern masculinity, male beauty standards, and unspoken prejudices within marginal communities. Tied together with a pioneering and infectiously catchy electronic score, GUY channels floor-filling EDM anthems, indie electronica, queer hip-hop, and PC Music with the lyrical charm of Sondheim, and the earworm melodies of Schwartz.
More info: www.bunkertheatre.com