After an incredible run at 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Riverside Studios and Assembly Festival Fringe First-winning production of RAZ embarks on its U.K. tour following its London premiere at Trafalgar Studios, visiting Unity Theatre on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th June at 8pm.
Written by Olivier-Award winner Jim Cartwright, this bitingly funny, in turn heart-warming and heart-breaking play, is about a night out in modern Britain and a generation that lives for the weekend whilst still living at home with their parents.
RAZ is a stirring commentary on the current culture of booze, drugs and disposable relationships within the context of the age of the zero-hours contract highlighting the low-paid lives and even lower aspirations of the generation of austerity.
It’s Friday night and Shane’s going to hit the town hard. On Monday it’s back to the grind and he starts all over again.
This vivid portrait of the weekend millionaires who gym and tan while Mum does the laundry is the very real story of a lost generation of young adults living in Britain today. A report published in 2014 by the Office for National Statistics revealed that the number of 20-34 year olds returning to live with their parents has reached the highest level since 1996, with almost 1 in 4 returning to the nest.
Jim Cartwright rose to prominence with his 1986 multi award-winning debut Road and cemented his place as an essential voice in British theatre with The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (1992) at the National Theatre, which received six Olivier Award nominations and won three, including Best Comedy. His career spans writing, acting and directing across theatre, television and film. Cartwright is a multi-faceted talent. He has created work that forms an important part of the canon of British theatre and is consistently in production around the world with works translated into over thirty-five languages.
RAZ is performed by RTS Award-winning actor, James Cartwright (The Archers, B.B.C. Radio 4; The History Boys, National Theatre; Johnny Shakespeare, B.B.C. One). James plays Shane, a young factory worker who navigates one man’s place in the world amidst the throes of a booze-fuelled Friday night out in the North of England.
Director Anthony Banks (Prince of Denmark, National Theatre; The Experiment, Soho Theatre and Berliner Ensemble; Herding Cats, Hampstead Theatre & Theatre Royal Bath) was an associate director at the National Theatre until 2014 where he commissioned and developed a hundred new plays for Connections, the NT’s annual festival of new plays for youth theatres and schools, including Jim Cartwright’s Mobile Phone Show in 2013 which swiftly became the most popular play of the entire Connections canon.
RAZ features sound and composition from Ben and Max Ringham (The Maids, Trafalgar Studios; The Painkillers, The Garrick, Queen Anne, RSC), and lighting design from Joshua Carr (Hangmen, Royal Court & West End).
RAZ plays at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th June, 8pm. Tickets can be booked via Unity Theatre’s Box Office on 0151 709 4988 or via www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk.
Tickets are priced at £14 with concessions available at £12.