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Mary Brennan, The Herald (Scotland)
"Blisteringly fierce"
Details
In 1994 hundreds of coal miners hung up their pit boots as Grimethorpe Colliery was destroyed, along with the tight-knit working-class community that surrounded it. WASTELAND, Gary Clarke’s sequel to COAL, looks at how two generations coped in this era of radical upheaval. As we see one generation grind to a halt, we follow the next into the 90s illegal rave scene, where derelict warehouses and abandoned work spaces became home for a new-found community of music and dance.
Bringing together Clarke's vivid physical dance language performed by a company of exceptional dancers, a community cast of singers, brass musicians, archive film footage, a powerful rave soundtrack and unique artwork by Jimmy Cauty (co-founder of The KLF), WASTELAND dives headfirst into a gritty story of loss, hope, escapism, and survival.
Gary Clarke Company will recruit 2 brass musicians from a local championship brass band and 4 men from the community to perform as Pit Men Singers in the show. More details of the recruitment guidelines can be found here.
Ages 14+
Contains some strong language, strobe lighting, loud music, haze and smoke effects.
Wasteland is co-commissioned by: Nottingham Playhouse, Tramway, Cast, Dance4, The Place, DanceXchange, Gulbenkian, Art31, Contact Theatre, Grand Theatre Blackpool, Civic Barnsley, Yorkshire Dance, with additional support from Lawrence Batley Theatre, Northern Ballet, Leeds Dance Partnership, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Jon Kinsey Hairdressing, Stirling Pit Women and public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
Photography Joe Armitage | Graphic Design Up for Grabs
How Our Prices Work
How Our Prices Work
Better seats. Better prices. Better get your skates on.
We set our ticket prices in a similar way to airlines - the earlier you book, the cheaper the seat. And of course booking early means you get to choose the best ones. For this show, our standard price seats start low at £16 and rise over time to a maximum of £25.
Our ticket price promise: the earlier you book, the more you save
Unlike most price promises, we guarantee that ours will never be cheaper than they are today.
Best Seats
To enjoy the best seat in the house, choose one of our Best Seats priced at £27.50.
Offers
Offers
£5 tickets for 16 - 24s
Are you 16 -24? Then we’ve just the deal for you. Apply for our 16=24 membership scheme and get one £5 ticket for this show. More info here.
Reviews
Eliza Gearty, The Skinny
“A poignant and thrilling portrait of the British rave scene”
Mark Brown, The Herald on Sunday (Scotland)
“Brilliant”
Anna Winter, The Stage
“Wasteland is a truly wonderful piece of dance-theatre: humane, politically charged, by turns funny and sad.”
Teresa Guerreiro, Culture Whisper
“An ambitious, carefully crafted, visceral dance-theatre treatment of a crucial time in the history of modern Britain, that more than justifies its belief in dance as a vehicle for ideas and social commentary.”
Siobhan Murphy, Dance Tabs
“It feels important, somehow, that this moment in dance history is recorded so faithfully and with such love.”
Keith Watson, Metro
“Dance taken at a barnstorming, frantic pace with a sharp political edge to boot… its picture of alienated youth rising from the ashes and finding both escape and a sense of purpose in the hedonistic release of rave culture is curiously uplifting.”
Jonathan Cash, The Reviews Hub
“This is a powerful, accomplished piece of dance theatre and a timely reminder of the social consequences of political actions.”
Team & Cast
Team
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Gary Clarke
PRODUCER: Annabel Dunbar
COMPANY ASSOCIATE: Alistair Goldsmith
DRAMATURG: Lou Cope
LIGHTING AND VIDEO DESIGN: Charles Webber
SET & COSTUME DESIGN: Ryan Dawson Laight
MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Steven Roberts
SOUNDSCAPE DESIGN: Daniel Thomas
RAVE SOUNDTRACK: Charles Webber
SCRIPT & TEXT: Lewey Hellewell
Cast
THE LAST MINER: Parsifal James Hurst (PJ)
THE BOY: Robert Anderson
THE RAVERS: Jake Evans, Patricia Langa, Emily Thompson Smith, Shelley Eva Haden
