women

INTERVIEW: TIM EDGE (ONE OF THE BOYS) | London, Playground Theatre

Interview

Tim Edge is the self-professed rabble-rouser and writer of his acclaimed debut play Under The Black Rock (2023). His second play, One of the Boys (2024), is running at the Playground Theatre in West London, 1 – 26 October, 2024.

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— What inspired you to write One of the Boys?

Having been brought up in a household surrounded by women, I have always been tuned in to female voices and struggles. Also, I have worked in high-pressure environments, like those depicted in the play, where inappropriate male attitudes and behaviours made me feel deeply uncomfortable. I wrote the play because sexism ruins lives and careers. Ideally, I want men to see the play, and to change their behaviour.

— Now that we are all working from home, the days of office sexism are behind us; aren’t they?

Not a bit of it! Although the headline characteristics of office sexism are less blatant, its effects and reach are more insidious; particularly through the use of social media. My daughters, who are making their own way in the workplace, tell me stories to indicate that much still needs to be done before women can feel secure and valued in all work settings.

— To what extent is One of the Boys in the same style as your last play, Under The Black Rock?

Obviously, it’s a very different subject matter — the Northern Ireland Troubles to the corporate world — but very much the same style; which I characterise as gasps, laughs, and a punchy plot that races along. Ultimately though, the play is designed to confront, to engage and to get people talking. Our audiences so far tell us that this is being achieved!

— What’s next for Tim Edge?

A break to re-set and re-charge! I’m delighted, though, that my production company has been able to offer opportunities to a number of talented actors and creatives over the last two years. On the writing front, a third play called That Look is in development. I am also writing a detective novel, inspired by the works of Raymond Chandler and Derek Raymond.

One of the Boys plays at the Playground Theatre in West London, 1 – 26 October, 2024.

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CRIMEA 5AM | London, Kiln Theatre

Recommended

This free-admission, one-night-only performance is part of the British Council and the Ukrainian Institute UK/Ukraine Season of Culture, is produced by Dash Arts and supported in kind by Kiln Theatre. A cast of actors, activists and journalists will stage a reading of Crimea 5am in the Kiln Cinema, followed by a post-show chat co-hosted by Index on Censorship.

Highlighting the stories of ten political prisoners and their families, Crimea 5am is an international project that brings together voices from an extraordinary community of women, bound together as a result of human rights violations against Crimean Tatars since 2014. Curated by Alim Aliev and Nadia Sokolenko, this moving verbatim play tells the story largely through a female perspective, and how the women have been empowered and changed through their experiences.

Since 2014, civil activists and in particular representatives of the indigenous people of the Crimean peninsula, Crimean Tatars, have been persecuted by Russian occupying forces. Obscured by a news blackout, we know little of these events, little of the prisoners themselves, their families and life in Crimea under occupation.

Crimea 5am celebrates the sheer determination and activism within this oppressed community, the bravery of the prisoners in documenting abuses, and its defiant women holding the ravaged community together.

Playing at the Kiln Theatre 7pm, Monday 16 January, 2023. Free admission.

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