Shivered
Philip Ridley
Shivered
A young couple are moving into their new home. A soldier is being held hostage. Two boys are searching for monsters. All these things are connected by both family and time… but what story can be told when family and time are broken?Covering over twelve years, it unpicks the story of two families and then re-weaves it into something new and startling. Seven people, one war, a derelict car plant and mysterious lights in the sky… all come together in the Essex new-town of Draylingstowe, where the view from green hills once offered hope and prosperity for all.
3.1 out of 5 based on 8 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Location |
London |
| Venue |
Southwark Playhouse |
| Director |
Russell Bolam |
| Cast |
Joseph Drake, Andrew Hawley, Robbie Jarvis, Simon Lenagan, Olivia Poulet, Joshua Williams Amanda Daniels |
| From |
March 2012 |
| Until |
April 2012 |
| Box Office |
020 7407 0234 |
| |
A young couple are moving into their new home. A soldier is being held hostage. Two boys are searching for monsters. All these things are connected by both family and time… but what story can be told when family and time are broken?Covering over twelve years, it unpicks the story of two families and then re-weaves it into something new and startling. Seven people, one war, a derelict car plant and mysterious lights in the sky… all come together in the Essex new-town of Draylingstowe, where the view from green hills once offered hope and prosperity for all.
Ages 14+
Reviews
The Independent
Paul Taylor
“To listen to some folk, you might run away with the idea that Philip Ridley - renaissance man of the East End and master of the sawn-off baroque - is just a sensationalising miserabilist out to exploit and maximise everything that is morally and viscerally gross and Triple-X-rated ... They fail to take on board the generosity of spirit that impels his plays and makes them not a tragicomic reveling in the destructive element but bravura, abundant, tonally varied tours de foce of the dramatic and narrative arts. ”
15/03/2012
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The Stage
Aleks Sierz
“Instead of telling this story in a straight linear way, Ridley chops it up into 17 scenes which are shown out of sequence. The effect is that of watching an elaborate account of extreme emotional experience, where the intensity of feeling has ruptured time itself. In part, this reflects the obsessions of some of the characters with sci-fi; in part, it keeps the audience glued to the narrative.”
14/03/2012
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Time Out
Nina Caplan
“Ridley ... siphons an incredible amount into this play - including the provoking idea that YouTube clips may be the patriotic Latin slogans of the present era - he deliberately leaves a lot out: tenderness barely gets a moment.”
14/03/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
“Staged in Southwark Playhouse's scarred brick vault, the production has powerfully grim moments. There's a stoning that is surely Ridley's attempt to be dubbed the Edward Bond of his generation. More surprisingly, the piece is also flecked with humour.”
18/03/2012
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The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
“Ridley’s writing quivers with menace but there are moments of savoury humour amid the scabrous imagery ... However, [he] juggles too many ideas and idioms. ”
19/03/2012
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The Guardian
Maddy Costa
“Ridley has written what in more conventional hands would be a big, chewy, state-of-the-nation play, examining the effects of deindustrialisation and the internet on the family and the self, then shattered it, disordering its chronology, heightening its complexity. ”
15/03/2012
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The Times
Libby Purves
“Even when we start to hope that the reverse storytelling is kindly designed to stop us slitting our wrists on the way out by leaving the families in their original optimism, a late flash-forward brings grief, snarling recrimination, brain-damage, suicide, and a prediction that “We will wake up every day for the rest of our lives and we will breathe razor blades and swim through bleach”.”
15/03/2012
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The Observer
Kate Kellaway
“I disliked this bleak, attention-seeking play so intensely that it must be an inverted compliment to its power.”
18/03/2012
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