Joe Orton Double Bill
Ruffian On The Stair
Orton’s first play, the one-act The Ruffian on the Stair is a claustrophobic black comedy about two domesticated criminals and a menacing stranger.
It is two years since Mike persuaded Joyce to give up a rather dubious career and live with him in a small flat and an unstimulating relationship. Mike is fitfully employed, receiving furtive commissions to cause certain people significant bodily inconvenience. Left alone in the flat with the goldfish, Joyce is visited by Wilson, who invites himself in and reveals he knows quite a lot about her current life, and aforementioned dubious employment. From Wilson’s more-than-fraternal relationship with his deceased brother and Mike’s violently-protective jealousy emerges a tense and bristling comedy of unusual morality.
The Ruffian on the Stair was broadcast on BBC Radio in 1964, and given its first stage performance in a production by the English Stage Society in 1966. This revised version was produced at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1967.
Funeral Games
Irreverently morbid, impeccably witty and viciously satiric, Funeral Games is a black farce of unconventional piety. Caulfield, a self-confessed member of the criminal classes, is hired as a private investigator by Pringle, who suspects his wife of having an affair. Pringle is the head of a seedy sect called ‘The Brotherhood’; he has a hot water bottle in the shape of a cross and communes intimately with female penitents. His wife, it turns out, has been doing nothing more compromising than caring for McCorquodale, an elderly defrocked priest with a body in his cellar. But the Bible demands that Pringle exacts brutal revenge upon the ‘adulteress’: not to kill her would be to risk the fury of his adoring and amorous public.
The play’s mischievously inverted piety makes a deliciously sharp and hilarious attack on religious hypocrisy. Funeral Games was first presented by Yorkshire Television in 1968.
Related upcoming events
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02/05/2024 7:00 pm - 02/05/2024 10:00 pmFringe Preview Night
Join us at The Lantern Theatre for our Brighton Fringe Preview Night and Launch Party!
Enjoy live and digital previews of 15 of the shows that will be performing at the Lantern this Fringe, and then join us for a complimentary drink in the bar to celebrate the beginning of Fringe season!
Artists will also be available afterwards for interviews and our team will be able to answer any questions you have about our programme as well as arrange press comps for the shows.
This Fringe we have curated the best of local, national, and international fringe theatre. With 28 shows, we are one of the largest fringe venues specialising in theatre this year, and we can't wait to share our programme with you. It's bold, fresh, and thought-provoking.
Previews include: Chopped Liver & Unions (Blue Fire Theatre Co.), Magpie (Pigs Back Productions), Six Characters in Search of Pirandello (Timothy Coakley), RANK. (GOLDSTONE), The Waiting Room (Moon Kim Theatre Company), Dinner! Darlings! Dinner! (Josephine Pembroke Productions), That Witch Helen (Sibyl Theatre), Karaoke at the S.U (Cubicle Theatre), Geneva Convention (Blank Productions), 1,2,3 Sh*t. That's My OCD (AM•UAЯT), The Strange Case of Dr Dillon (Bramble Theatre Art), and Chuck 'n' Jeck
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03/05/2024 9:00 pm - 05/05/2024 10:00 pmIreland, 1923.
Civil war has split country, friend and family. The story of “Magpie” follows two brothers, Michael and Patrick Murphy, within the confines of Kilmainham Gaol. One an IRA gunman fresh from the trenches of WWI, the other a Freestate prison guard. Both haunted by the past.“Magpie” probes the complexity of loyalty between family and national allegiance, ideology, and experience. It resonates powerfully in today’s volatile times of war and conflict; enduring themes, as relevant today as they were a century ago.
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09/05/2024 5:00 pm - 09/05/2024 6:00 pmPlastic & Chicken Bones
A tiny margin of error causes a future time traveller to end up in the present day and, as they await recovery, we learn about what brought them here – as well as the events that led our species to a future without war, death, suffering or free will.
Set against the backdrop of escalating nuclear war, the rise of Artificial Intelligence, global warming, and the next phase of the human race, this gripping and thought-provoking solo piece is Brave New World meets Black Mirror and sparks a conversation that needs to be had.Voice Mag BEST NEWCOMER AWARD – Brighton Fringe 2022
”an incredible one-man show with heart, intelligence and vitality” ★★★★★ (The Reviews Hub)
“a thoroughly thrilling dystopian sci-fi social commentary” ★★★★★ (Voice Magazine)
“a very clever concept which is brilliantly revealed to the audience one bit at a time” (Chris Neville-Smith’s blog on theatre) -
09/05/2024 7:00 pm - 12/05/2024 8:00 pmSix Characters in search of Pirandello
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10/05/2024 9:00 pm - 12/05/2024 10:00 pm
Plastic & Chicken Bones
A tiny margin of error causes a future time traveller to end up in the present day and, as they await recovery, we learn about what brought them here – as well as the events that led our species to a future without war, death, suffering or free will.
Set against the backdrop of escalating nuclear war, the rise of Artificial Intelligence, global warming, and the next phase of the human race, this gripping and thought-provoking solo piece is Brave New World meets Black Mirror and sparks a conversation that needs to be had.Voice Mag BEST NEWCOMER AWARD – Brighton Fringe 2022
”an incredible one-man show with heart, intelligence and vitality” ★★★★★ (The Reviews Hub)
“a thoroughly thrilling dystopian sci-fi social commentary” ★★★★★ (Voice Magazine)
“a very clever concept which is brilliantly revealed to the audience one bit at a time” (Chris Neville-Smith’s blog on theatre) -
10/05/2024 9:00 pm - 11/05/2024 10:00 pmRANK.
RANK A debut play from Goldie Majtas, Gemma and Jane couldn’t be closer, the type of friendship that could survive through anything, I mean anything. This absurd piece of dark comedy will take you on an unexpected journey through the lives of two twenty-somethings trying to sort their sh*t out. All starting at a taxi rank. Think Waiting for Godot meets Fleabag. Be prepared for explicit subject matters and dark themes in this fun, fresh piece of writing. Directed by Julia Mandler and staring Paige Cowell and Goldie Majtas.
Grania Dean Studio
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11/05/2024 5:00 pm - 12/05/2024 5:45 pmIn an alternate universe, I don't want to live in the UK
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16/05/2024 7:00 pm - 16/05/2024 8:00 pm2 Queers in Tears?
This is not your regular love story.
Billy: “We should write a play about this”
Elliot: “God no babe, this is not for public viewing... ”Join Billy & Elliot, two queer, emotionally constipated 30-somethings on their journey to becoming their authentic selves. Expect singing, dancing, therapy, 5-am bed talks and a whole lot of mooo-ing. Laugh and "cry" with them as they discover that platonic love conquers all.
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16/05/2024 9:00 pm - 19/05/2024 10:10 pmThe Trails of Magnus Coffinkey
For what can you say to someone when their heart’s been cleft in two?
Nothing...
Nothing...
Nothing...
No words will ever do.From the writer and production team behind the 2022 Voice Mag BEST NEWCOMER AWARD at Brighton Fringe comes a haunting UK PREMIERE – a broken fairy tale for broken people.
In a whimsical land of dark fantasy, Magnus Coffinkey must repair a broken bell atop an impossibly high tower. Success will make his deepest desire come true – whereas the price of failure is a permanently broken heart and a lifetime of guilt, pain and sorrow.
Using fairy tale as a gentle tool for processing and trying to make sense out of personal trauma and grief, The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey is charming, honest and devastating.
