Preview: Tom Cassani and Peader Kirk – I Promise You That Tonight at Camden People’s Theatre and Doncaster

We can all walk on broken glass as carefree as if it were sand beneath our feet. We can all put our hands straight into the fire and not leave a mark.

None of these things are impossible but it’s ok to admit that they are hard. Tom Cassani twists showman’s patter to preach the importance of remaining wary of those who make extraordinary claims. Lying is done with words and also silence…..

Tom’s obsession with magic and illusion has led him to explore how and why we believe the things we do. Using interweaving monologues Cassani exorcises his inner sceptic and believer. Throughout I Promise You That Tonight, a new one-hour show, Cassani switches between the roles of the showman and charlatan, with wry wit he shares puzzling accounts of spontaneous human combustion and memories of drowning.

Risking actual injury from a stage covered in broken glass and fragmented truths, Cassani performs feats with real blowtorches, incantatory texts and sleight of hand to set fire to our fickle sense of truth.

Direction and dramaturgy come courtesy of multifaceted artist and director Peader Kirk. Together they have created an experience that smashes together a myriad of intriguing imagery and illusory text.

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Tom Cassani is a performance maker and artist based in London. Tom’s theatre work is concerned with textual illusion, authentic deception and honest trickery. Since graduating from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2016 Tom has performed his own work at The Birmingham Rep, Edinburgh’s Summerhall, Camden People’s Theatre and The Lowry in Salford. Tom utilises skills of deceit as an artistic framework to explore truth, fabrication and open manipulation.

Peader Kirk is an artist and director working internationally in the fields of Performance, Sound Art and Hip Hop Theatre. His work has been shown at The Southbank Centre and The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, The National Theatre of Greece in Athens, Academy of Fine Arts in Turin and The Hong Kong Repertory Theatre. Peader makes work engaging directly with communities to ask questions about how we meet amidst difference and how we create change.

Tom and Peader first worked together on the solo show Someone Loves You Drive With Care initially commissioned by Works Ahead. This show went on to win Birmingham European Festival of Theatres 1^st Prize. Gaining 5 star reviews, the show toured Spain and the UK.

London

I Promise You That Tonight – 31^st March to Saturday 4^th April – Camden People’s Theatre, 58-60 Hampstead Rd, Kings Cross, London NW1 2PY, www.cptheatre.co.uk 020 7419 4841

Doncaster

I Promise You That Tonight 5^th of May – CAST Doncaster, Waterdale, Doncaster DN13BU, www.castindoncaster.com/ 01302 303 959