Pornography

Synopsis

One week in July 2005. Live 8. G8. London 2012 Olympics. 7/7. July 2005, Britain feels like the centre of the world. Big events are happening and everyone is talking about them. In schools, offices, streets, shops, parks and homes - there’s a buzz in the air. You can feel the sense of anticipation. The world’s eyes are focused on us and you can feel the energy and possibilities. In less than an hour in Central London, everything will change...Pornography is the stark and shattering new play by Simon Stephens that captures Britain as it crashes from the euphoria and promise of the 2012 Olympics announcement into the devastation of 7/7.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 7 August 2009

Simon Stephens’ play Pornography ripples with tension. The title refers to how we might view things, not what they are. We are awaiting the bomb blasts on the tubes and buses four years ago. And we are eavesdropping on the lives of those affected while a terrorist makes his way from Leeds to King’s Cross.

The play, co-produced by the Birmingham Rep, was commissioned and produced by a theatre in Hamburg and seen at the Traverse in Edinburgh during last year’s Fringe festival. It captures the randomness of the horror by showing a cross-section of ordinary lives bumbling towards it.

Sean Holmes’ production is a brilliant exercise in good old Brechtian alienation. Inflamed monologues merge with isolated sound bites. The designer Paul Wills has turned the stage into an extension of a tube train, lights hanging in neon strips, the participatory sound engineer evoking Coldplay’s “Yellow” as an alternative natio...

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Latest User Review

NotPinter - 14 September 2009:

(Review of Bath production) I was looking forward to seeing this play, not least because I love theatrical stories that use monologue and other devices, but was hugely disappointed. I felt the piece needed a centre, as it seemed lacking in coherence. Maybe Simon Stephens wanted to show how disconnected humans experience events, but if he's showing us real pain, I think he needs to give us real characters, not theatrical ciphers. This may sound harsh, but this play suffers from the 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome....

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