A young man moves to the big city with dreams of becoming a writer. But in this unforgiving metropolis, friends are scarce and jobs are even scarcer. Once hunger rocks the core of his reality, how can his youthful spirit – and his sanity – survive?

In this fast-paced new adaptation, Amanda Lomas explodes Knut Hamsun’s tale about a mind on the margins and, more than a century since the original novel captured the brutality of urban isolation, asks how much has changed.

2020 Off-West End Award Finalist for Best Sound Design

…it’s only very gradually that the city turns on our writer. There’s always hope until, quite suddenly, there isn’t. Lex Kosanke’s playful score teases us with the promise of something better just around the corner and there’s great work from movement director Natasha Harrison, who keeps the small cast moving in one direction and the writer in another. The production slowly warps and darkens as the hunger takes hold.

• Miriam Gillinson for The Guardian

 

Lex Kosanke’s score is sharp and arresting, while the ensemble’s movement during interludes proves that the production can depict psychosis without relying solely on dialogue.

•  Ravi Ghosh for theatreweekly.com

 

The memorable string-plucked score enacting the counterpoint of bustle in this adaptation is composed by Lex Kosanke. And its physical twin bounces with Movement Director Natasha Harrison’s enormous clarity as the high-velocity pitch of living barges past the protagonist.

•  Simon Jenner for fringereview.co.uk

 

I Loved the cracked mind flooring, lighting up at times of major stress, and the music, by Lex Kosanke, is excellent.

• Tim Winter for londonboxoffice.co.uk

 

Adaptation by Amanda Lomas

Directed by Fay Lomas

Set and Costume Design by Anna Kezia Williams

Lighting Design by Rajiv Pattani

Music and Sound Design by Lex Kosanke

Movement Direction by Natasha Harrison

Stage Manager Kenzie Murray

Assistant Direction by Lydia McKinley

Associate Movement Direction by Georgina Makhubele

Produced by Ellen Spence, Arcola Theatre and Jump Spark

Cast Kwami Odoom, Archie Backhouse, Katie Eldred and Jessica Tomlinson