sci fi

THE CONVERT | London, Above The Stag

Theatre - Recommended

Following a sell-out run as part of Above The Stag’s CONTACT Season in 2021, The Convert will return for a full production from June 2022. Chillingly informed by real techniques that are used against LGBTQ+ people, Ben Kavanagh’s imaginative and timely play pitches nightmarish forces against our unerasable, shining humanity.

Alix and Marcus have been brought to The Facility to be “corrected”. If their condition is cured they may leave and return to the society. But if they fail, they will be sent to the Other Place, away from their friends and family forever. Failure is not an option, but in this confounding institution, where they only have each other, the greatest threat to their success is their own love.

“The play got such a huge reaction last year, and I am absolutely delighted that it’s returning,” says Kavanagh, about the original run at the same theatre in 2021. “It’s exciting to be able to develop the play for a full production and to have it published alongside the run so that the powerful subject matter may reach a larger audience.”

Gene David Kirk returns to direct, and is excited about the new possibilities for the show. “We have the opportunity to deliver a highly entertaining and theatrical evening of great writing alongside the highest production values. I couldn’t be more excited.”

Audience members are invited to book tickets for the play’s gala night on Wednesday 15 June 2022: tickets are £20 and include a glass of bubbly, a signed copy of the newly published playscript, and a Q&A with the cast and creatives.

Playing 8 June – 3 July 2022 at Above The Stag, the UK’s LGBT+ theatre.

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TORUK: THE FIRST FLIGHT | London, O2 Arena

Recommended

Cirque du Soleil’s 2015 arena spectacular, based on James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), is coming to London. Still the highest-grossing film of all time at $2.8 billion, Avatar is about how, on the planet Pandora, a local tribe of Na’vi become endangered by the expansion of a mining colony. This contemporary circus show is a sort of prequel, set thousands of years before the events of the film.

In Avatar, Jake Sully becomes the sixth person to successfully ride a great leonopteryx, also known as a toruk: any rider is then named Toruk Makto. But who was the first Toruk Makto? Set around 837 BC, the show follows the journey of Entu, the first Na’vi to become a Toruk Makto, in order to save the Tree of Souls from being destroyed by a volcano.

Cirque du Soleil are globally renowned as the greatest circus on earth, and audiences can expect plenty of jaw-dropping acrobatic stunts. However, this differs from most Cirque du Soleil shows in that there is a narrative core. The show also has a large focus on puppetry, animating the wild and diverse creatures of Pandora: viperwolves, direhorses, austrapedes and turtapedes. The leonopteryx/toruk flies using reverse-string puppetry, with the puppeteer beneath the creature.

Toruk also features multimedia audience interaction, where audience members use a mobile app to to influence visual effects and interactive content during the performance. It’s Cirque du Soleil pushing their art to the limits: no wonder this has been such a global hit show for the last four years. Book now!

Take flight with the ancient Na’vi in London for seven performances only, 26 — 30 June 2019.

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