Diorama 1: The SHOCK AND AWE series of evenings at The Cockpit Theatre were created to provide a forum for immediate responses to the war in Iraq. Through tonight’s events we hope to further debate: how can theatre respond to the recent war? What is its frame of reference? Its relationship with the political world beyond it?

More: Full Programme of events at Shock and Awe, the sequel (PDF)

In addition to curating and producing the evening, Context Theatre presented two works in progress:

Rolling News by Lance Woodman
Context Theatre in collaboration with Escape Artists
Director: Zoe Svendsen, Dramaturg: Claire Pamment, Actors: Scott Brooksbank, Paul Malcolm, Claire Nowell, Catherine Skinner.
Rolling News: rolling into us, rolling over us and rolling past us. What's going on? There's no time to stop, no time to think. If there aren't any pictures, it hasn't happened.
When does information turn into white noise?
How can more and more information, more and more comment, make less sense? If one thing turns out to be untrue, how do we know if we can trust the rest?
Rolling News was originally presented at The Birmingham Rep’s Beyond The Boundaries 2002. We hope that the creative process for Shock and Awe will lead to development of a full-length piece.

Lance Woodman - 'I'd like to thank Escape Artists and Context
Theatre for their work in developing and presenting Rolling News in London.
The process has left me inspired.' July 2003

Shot on Location by Sarmad Sehbai
‘Are you watching?
Did you see it?
Switch on, switch on.’
Sarmad Sehbai’s monologue, originally written as a poem is performed for the first time by Claire Nowell, directed by Claire Pamment in an invisible theatre context.
Sarmad Sehbai: poet, screenwriter and film director is known in Pakistan for his unorthodox approach towards art and culture. He pioneered modern theatre with his very first play ‘The Dark Room’. He has been published and performed in English, Punjabi and Urdu.

© Context Theatre MMIV

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