Last Updated on 18 August 2021 by Showcall Editorial Team
Robert Boulton’s sci-fi black comedy, Snowflakes, will run at the Old Red Lion Theatre in north London this autumn
A new black comedy about “cancel culture”, Snowflakes, is to premiere at London’s Old Red Lion Theatre.
Robert Boulton’s play questions ideas of morality, revenge and justice “with gleeful, violent abandon”, lacerating modern outrage and trial by social media.
Combining the technological nihilism of Black Mirror with the dark comedy and horror of Inside No 9, the sci-fi black comedy draws in questions about the potency of social media, female empowerment and how characters earnestly confront trauma.
Boulton will perform Snowflakes alongside Niamh Finlay and Henry Davis. It is directed by Michael Cottrell with assistant director Nat Graham, design by Alys Whitehead and lighting design by Jonathan Chan.
Originally scheduled to run at the Old Red Lion in spring 2020, it will now run at the Islington theatre from 28 September to 16 October 2021, with opening night on 30 September.
It is being staged by Dissident Theatre – a company with the goal of “making theatre to confront the base, the repressed and ambiguous corners of the world we live in”.
Boulton said: “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’m flitting somewhere in between terror and excitement to see how the audience responds.
“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.”
