Clockschool Theatre presents:
PLAYGROUND
13 October – 17 November 2015, 7.30pm (Tues-Sat)
Peter Hamilton’s Playground is a gruesomely comic follow-up to his hit play Bridlington, and reunites him with acclaimed director/designer and Old Red Lion legend Ken McClymont (Mugs Arrows, No Picnic, Beak Street) in a story of things falling apart beneath the swing-set.
***** “emotionally flooring… spectacularly funny… beautifully ordered chaos… a surprising and revelatory piece of new writing” (London Theatre 1)
“There isn’t going to be no revolution. I’ve told you: you can’t change the world.”
Playground is about a fragmented, broken society. It’s about the lost, the damaged and the disappointed. About rattling about in the nightmarish modern world. It takes the form of a murder mystery. It takes place in a park. Someone’s been decapitating children with a fret-saw. Someone’s been reading Enid Blyton. Something has gone badly wrong.
***** “surrealistic, powerful and extraordinarily beautiful play” (Remotegoat)
Two detectives struggle to solve a spate of child murders in Victoria Park, East London. Small bodies found beheaded with a Famous Five novel lying open on top of them. Suspects are readily available: previous and current patients at Bow Road Psychiatric Unit; Danny, a night cleaner at Canary Wharf; Stuart, a rough-sleeper from Walthamstow; private school drop-out-turned-Communist Tamsin; or frayed and failed Carolyn who teeters on the brink of another suicide attempt. Then there’s Bella, the proprietor of canal-side Drop-In Cafe, who just happens to go about with a ferocious looking knife in her shoulder-bag.
**** “an affectionate and often darkly humorous tale of mental illness” (The Upcoming)
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Title: Playground
Playwright: Peter Hamilton
Director and Designer:Ken McClymont
Company: Clockschool Theatre
Performance Dates: October 13th 2015 – November 7th 2015, Tuesday – Saturday, 7.30pm, 3pm Saturday matinees, 2pm Sunday matinees (No evening performance Saturday, October 31st)
Running Time: 2 hrs (with interval)
Venue: Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, London EC1V 4NJ
Ticket Price:£15 (£12 concessions, £1 – £1.50 booking fee), previews and matinees £10
Box Office: Ticketweb (ticketweb.co.uk)
Links: Website (oldredliontheatre.co.uk)