Taking Cancel Culture to an extreme, black comedy Snowflakes questions ideas of morality, revenge, and justice with gleefully violent abandon.
Combining the technological nihilism of Black Mirror with the dark comedy and horror of Inside No. 9, Robert Boulton’s Office-Nominated Snowflakes is coming to Park Theatre this spring.
This critically acclaimed, award-winning (Best Production, 2021 London Pub Theatre Awards) play captures the intricacies of modern outrage and subsequent trials by social media.
Tony is standing for trial by social media, and Marcus and Sarah work for a very special start-up – they do the job people are crying out for in the comments section. In this start-up, you can outsource your rage to the professionals; justice is not blind, it’s streamed to millions.
What if you could decide at the click of a button who deserves to be forgiven for their moral wrongdoings, and who deserves to die for their sins?
Snowflakes is a sci-fi black comedy that questions the potency of social media and examines how far you could go to right a wrong.
This enthralling new work is presented by Dissident Theatre, a company with the goal of making theatre which confronts the base, the repressed and the ambiguous corners of the world we live in, and Chronic Insanity, an Offie Award[1]winning theatre company, specialising in all things digital, interactive, and immersive.
Making his writing debut, Robert Boulton (False Choices, King’s Head Theatre; Redistributors, Protest Productions) will also star in Snowflakes as Marcus, alongside Louise Hoare (Green and Pleasant Land, Arcola Theatre; Skin Tight, The Hope Theatre; Women of Paradise, Trafalgar Studios) as Sarah, and Henry Davis (Chariots of Fire, Hampstead Theatre/Gielgud Theatre; Jersey Boys, UK Tour 2014-2016; Hannah, Amazon Prime) as Tony.
Writer Robert Boulton comments, My favourite stories have always been dark, twisted and morally dubious – what that says about me as a person, God only knows. I want to make people laugh through the darkness; I don’t respond well to moral preaching or superiority and don’t expect an audience to. I hope Snowflakes is a relevant, if irreverent, riff on contemporary society, not just examining the problems we’re encountering now and where we might be going; but also asking where we want to be when and if we solve these problems. Then again, maybe not.
Snowflakes is brought to life by an angular minimalist set by Offie-nominated Alys Whitehead (Aisha, The Old Red Lion and Tristan Bates Theatre), designed to reflect the nature of internet streaming, courtrooms and the dystopian future-present in which the play is set. Lighting design by Jonathan Chan (Sticks and Stones, Tristan Bates Theatre) interplays with the set design to create interesting changes in mood throughout the production. Videography and live streaming by Dan Light (Bat Out of Hell the Musical, international tour) confront the audience relentlessly with the dark world these characters inhabit.
Snowflakes is at Park Theatre 12th April – 6th May 2023
