Twenty years since its explosive premiere, Olivier Award-winning director Sean Holmes brings Mark Ravenhill’s provocative first play Shopping and Fucking back to the stage. It runs at London’s Lyric Hammersmith (where Holmes is artistic director) for a limited season from 7 October to 5 November 2016, with a press night on 12 October.
With a raw mixture of black humour and bleak philosophy, the play follows three disconnected young adults whose lives have been reduced to a series of transactions in an emotionally shrink wrapped world. A place where Shopping is sexy and Fucking is a job.
‘An omen of the new century’ (Evening Standard), Ravenhill’s play is a prophetic vision of our twenty-first century world. Widely regarded as one of the most influential pieces of contemporary British theatre this rarely staged play is a must see.
The Lyric’s main house will be transformed for this production with part of the audience seated on the stage, creating a bold intimate experience within their Victorian auditorium. All stalls and onstage stalls seats will be £25.
Mark Ravenhill said:
“I’ve enjoyed a long and fulfilling association with the Lyric – Faust Is Dead (1997), Handbag (1998), Pool (2005), Show 6 (2015) for the Lyric’s Secret Theatre – and so it’s very exciting that they are reviving my first play Shopping and Fucking, twenty years after it premiered. I’m looking forward to seeing what a new generation of theatre audiences make of the play.”
Casting is to be announced.
