The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man

PRESS

“Elegiac and prescient, the play avoids the trappings of recounting yet another example of backward Victorian attitudes. Here we are not being asked to sympathize with Merrick. Instead, it asks us to reflect deeply on our assumptions of what we truly know about others and ourselves, and ask why freakshow culture – which saturates salacious headlines and reality TV, whilst ignoring the human beings behind them – has never gone away.” DISABILITY ARTS ONLINE

“In the lead role, Zak Ford-Williams radiates sweet nature without being ingratiating, and yet argues with a righteous fury at the hypocrisy of those who seem to care for him. It is a performance at once heartening and sad, and a production, on Simon Kenny’s fluid set dynamically lit by Jai Morjaria, with vigour and attitude.” THE GUARDIAN

“Director Stephen Bailey has assembled a brilliant team to realise a stylish, atmospheric and fully accessible production. We’re whisked between rapid-fire scenes by a prowling narrator, Killian Thomas Lefevre, supplying both audio description and flourishes on an electric guitar. Nicola T Chang’s moody rock score, Simon Kenny’s chic, versatile set, and lighting designer Jai Morjaria’s gorgeous chiaroscuro all amp up the drama, marrying industrial steels with glowing neon and dry ice.” THE STAGE

“This is a searingly moving play, brilliantly acted with real feeling and integrity.” FAIRY POWERED PRODUCTIONS

“Civilisation may be evolving at breakneck speed, but it comes with a cost: the factory fodder, the millions who slave away in the mills and mines only to stagger wearily home to their shacks.” LEFT LION

“Doubtful whether there has ever been a better example of theatre’s ability to be inclusive at the same time as demonstrating the unnerving quality of being able to shock.” BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE

“Although Zak Ford-Williams uses his body to represent aspects of Merrick’s physical difference, he is not transformed prosthetically by the mushrooming and cauliflower growths referred to in the play’s poetry. It is again we, the audience, who are compelled to conjure up the additional visuals. This exceptionally bold move wholly succeeds both in allowing us to project our own physical ideas and fears onto Merrick, and self-reflect about our ideas of what we find visually repulsive and disturbing.” THEATRE AND TONIC