CAN THEATRE CHANGE THE WORLD? In his first full-length book, critically acclaimed writer and maker Chris Goode explores the relationships that make up the theatrical encounter: between ‘empty’ space and inhabited place; between actors and audiences; between theatre itself and the world around it. Drawing on a wealth of examples from the broadest possible range of practice – performative, artistic and political – his conclusions are radical, urgent and profoundly humane. ‘Using Goode’s terminology, this is a book for “makers againstthe- grain”. But it’s also for anyone living under capitalism who has ever thought about art. The breadth of Goode’s frame is mind-boggling: his subjects range from theatre to poetry to the photographs of Ryan McGinley; from Marina Abramović to John Berger to Rodgers and Hammerstein; from the queerness of noise to the poetics of nakedness. No one thinks into his subject more deeply and no one writes with more rigour and more candour. This book is burrowing, roaming, illuminating, respectful – but it’s also unafraid to take a swipe where a swipe is needed. It’s personal and passionately reasoned. It reads like a fiercely brainy love letter from someone who believes for dear life that theatre can change the world and that the world needs changing. The Forest and the Field is not easy. It should not be easy. It will require your attention. But your attention will be rewarded.’ Tim Crouch
Shirley is a teenage boy with a girl’s name, growing up in suburbia and feeling like the weirdest kid in the school. Nothing makes much sense to him, and his heart belongs to a classmate who barely knows he exists. Wound Man is an unconventional superhero, sprung from the pages of a medieval medical textbook, with an alarming assortment of weapons sticking out from every part of his body. Wound Man has just moved into a house on Shirley’s street – and he happens to have a vacancy for a teenage sidekick… A funny and touching story by Chris Goode about two unlikely friends and the adventures they share.‘A simple, unaffected piece of storytelling… There is something so unguarded, almost childlike, about this show that you can't help but fall in love with it’ 4 stars – Guardian ‘told with humour and bags of charm… The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley tells a familiar tale in a refreshing and imaginative way to leave us amused and moved.’ 4 stars – What’s On Stage
An incendiary piece of experimental storytelling from three-time Fringe First winner Chris Goode. Framed by two violent deaths – the apparently inexplicable suicide of a young gay man, and the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby outside the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich in May 2013 – Men in the Cities is a compelling piece about harm and complicity, and about the forces that shape our relationships. Through fractured snapshots of seemingly disconnected lives, Men in the Cities presents a challenging but radically humane portrait of how we live now.
When you're a child you don't really think… cos you like to live like a child. Doesn't really seem you're just going to be an adult. Like time flies by and you just want… to, like, stay as a child, but you just enjoy things, the way it goes.Award-winning writer Chris Goode asked thirty 8-10 year olds to talk about their lives, their thoughts, their world. In Monkey Bars their words are spoken by adults. Not adults playing children, but adults playing adults, in adult situations. Monkey Bars is a revelatory verbatim show that is funny, touching and endlessly surprising.