Event overview
Performance Research Forum hosts a range of events, talks and presentations by established and early-career researchers and practitioners in theatre and performance.
This PRF will introduce two new plays in progress: Iran Play (working title) by Richard Shannon and Common People by Nicholas McInerny.
The event will comprise a paper delivered by playwright and PhD researcher Richard Shannon and the performance of illustrative scenes from both plays. The paper and plays explore the dramaturgy of human rights and sexuality, with Richard’s project focussing on representations – and oppression – of the LGBTQ+ community in Iran.
These will be followed by a panel discussion between Nicholas McInerny, Richard Shannon, and Vali Mahlouji: art curator, founder of the non-profit platform Archaeology of the Final Decade, and advisor to the British Museum.
Iran Play
Two teenagers fall in love in the middle of an uprising against oppression.
They escape into a paradise garden of erotic dreams, djinns and poetry.
This fantastical place is destroyed in the moment they are discovered in each other’s arms.
Both are condemned to hang in public. Their father, whose true sexuality has been buried for decades, can do nothing to save them.
Richard Shannon is Head of Radio (MCCS) and module leader of the producer pathway in the MA in Musical Theatre (TaP) at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has recently written a chapter for the OUP Handbook of the Global Musical on the work of Cameron Mackintosh to be published in 2023. Richard is a published playwright, theatre director and radio drama producer. His play, The Lady of Burma, premiered at the Old Vic theatre in London in 2006. In 2012, the Dukes Theatre Lancaster produced his play Sabbat, the story of the Pendle witches. He was a founding director of Independent Radio Drama Productions and has produced major series for LBC radio in London and National Public Radio in the USA. In 2020, his podcast, Rainbow Dads, was nominated for Best Wellbeing Podcast at the British Podcasting Awards.
Common People
It’s Midsummer's Day on Clapham Common and the hottest day of the year. No wonder everyone is so thirsty.
In the hospice, Gregory is elegantly fading away, doing crosswords, and dreaming of leather sex. As night slowly draws in, the siren call from over the fence grow stronger – will he ever go cruising again?
Yvonne, his middle-aged nurse, is all brisk with professionalism and natural kindness. But her gentle touch unleashes a new energy in Gregory, a lust for life in a life of lust, now drawing to an end. And when Yvonne starts to hear those voices too, as she and Gregory grow closer - will she be tempted to give him what he wants?
Campfire Theatre is producing Common People at the Omnibus Theatre Clapham in February 2024.
Nicholas McInerny is a writer and teacher with over 85 professional credits, including The Bill (Thames Freemantle), A&E (Granada), and four series of How to Have a Perfect Marriage (BBC R4), which is to be published by Penguin as an audio drama. For Nicholas’s current work, see http://www.mcinerny.co.uk.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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6 Jun 2023 | 5:30pm - 8:00pm |
Accessibility
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