Olly Hawes announces that following a highly critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh festival this year, his one-man performance F**KING LEGEND will run at Riverside Studios From 13 November – 21 December
“We’re all selfish – that’s what it is to be human, to be selfish –
we’re all at the centre of our own stories.
I thought I’d change, I thought I’d do something good; but I didn’t, I just kept living my life in the same way I always had, and the world just kept falling apart.
But it was happening just far away enough from the edges of our attention, that we could ignore it.
In an experimental storytelling show blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction, between a man playing a part or a man making a confession, Olly Hawes picks apart the consequences of modern masculinity.
F**king Legend is played in two distinct acts, opening with the story of a stag do – “STAG STAG STAG!!!” – before swerving in a wildly different direction;, disintegrating into a dystopian action movie set amid full climate breakdown, smack bang in the middle of a refugee crisis, before closing on a coda that poses more questions than answers; and highlights the audience’s unavoidable implication in the future world he depicts.
The show draws a parallel between the state of men and the state of the world, a sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful critique of the everyday white, middle-class cis man and the consequences of late capitalism.
In this absurdist, yet deeply thought-provoking dark comedy, audiences are invited to a show about socks and sex, about loving someone even though they’re quite annoying, about buying tat on holiday, and also about fear of death, and cognitive dissonance, and whether or not it’s an issue that we’re all watching the world burn.
Olly says, “This show is both an emotional, unthinking splurge and a painstakingly crafted response to the toxicity of our culture. I look at the world and can’t work out whether to laugh until my sides split, cry until I’m dead or quietly try to make the few things I have influence over better. I want people to come and laugh and cry and feel anger – but most of all be moved, stirred, provoked. I’ve tried to make something that’s trashy but intellectual, silly but serious, and thought provoking – because it feels like to properly respond to the world we’re in today, it has to be all those things.”
Olly Hawes is a theatre maker whose work interrogates the tension between the desires of individuals and the stability of collectives. He is co-artistic director of take stock exchange, a theatre company that uses storytelling and conversation to build stronger communities, working with venues such as Royal Court Theatre. His previous shows as writer and performer include The Absolute Truth About Everything (2018, Camden People’s Theatre and UK tour) and You, Me and the World (2014, ZOO and UK tour).
