Laura Ryder and Harry Kingscott are the writers and performers of Slow Violence, an absurd physical comedy theatre show set in a neglected travel agents office.
This fast paced two-hander starts with Peter’s induction in the Happy Holiday’s office where he’s learning that working life isn’t quite as he imagined. Alongside his highly enthusiastic and overbearing colleague Claire, they carry on working in their run down and dangerously hot office, attempting to ignore the floods and flames as they plough on with business as usual. As the office (and the pair’s working relationship) farcically crumbles before the audiences’ eyes, the show gives them the opportunity to contemplate these indifferences and sparks timely conversations surrounding global warming.
Slow Violence is at The Pleasance 21st to 25th March 2023
You’re bringing Slow Violence to the Pleasance, what can you tell us about the show?
Slow Violence is an absurd comedy about climate apathy. It is set in the Happy Holiday’s office which is a travel agency. We meet Peter on his first day with Claire, his enthusiastic co-worker. It quickly becomes apparent that there is something wrong with the office, the heating is always on, and things are slowly falling apart. Problems increase, tensions grow and the pressure to act builds. It’s a metaphor for climate apathy, told through a playful lens.
What inspired you to write it?
Originally, we hadn’t intended to make a comedy. We knew we wanted to make a show about climate apathy. We’d read a phrase, coined by Rob Nixon, ‘slow violence’ to describe climate change and knew we wanted to use it as a starting point. In rehearsals, the more we played with the realities of climate apathy, the more clown-like and absurd it felt – that we’ve known about climate change for years and still seem unable to take action.
How do you think you’ve tackled the issue of climate change in a way at that’s different to other theatre productions?
We believe that theatre should be a great night out. Whilst we want audiences to reflect on climate inaction, we also want them to be entertained. Hope is really important to us in our stories, and we want to leave an audience with that.
You both also star in Slow Violence, what do you enjoy most about performing your own work?
Laura – I love building these characters, finding their quirks and how they inhabit the play. There is also something really playful about how they exist together, the games that get played and how they bounce off each other.
Harry – Performing Slow Violence is a lot of fun. The world we’ve created is so silly and ridiculous, it’s a great place to be! The show is snappy, rhythmical and very physical and it builds and builds. It’s exhausting, it’s messy and it’s so exciting to share it with new audiences!
And what do you think will be the biggest challenge?
We’d say that a potential challenge of performing in a show that you’ve devised is keeping that outside eye on the show. We work very collaboratively, there’s a reason we have ‘Team’ in our name. We have a brilliant creative team on this show and our collaborative process means we all hold a collective outside eye on it.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Slow Violence?
That you’ll have a great evening out. If you’re a fan of comedy and physical theatre, it’s definitely for you. There is something really special about sharing this show with audiences, a communal experience where we get to explore these huge issues in a playful way.
