August 1792. Twenty-thousand people storm the palace of King Louis XVI of France. Six months later the king is guillotined: France is a Republic.
July 1794. Fifteen thousand more people have had their heads chopped off. Republican leader Robespierre gets guillotined as well. The Revolution is over.
January 2024. Members of the international elite assemble in Davos for the final meetings of the World Economic Forum where they enjoy lovely saunas, hot spas and delicious, high-class food. Child poverty levels are the highest they’ve ever been. The richest 1% own half of the world’s wealth. A politician has been hit by a flying egg.
Written & directed by Sam Ward, It’s a show about angry, hungry citizens demanding a better world (It’s not Les Mis). It’s a show about rage and violence and taking to the streets. It’s a show with some music and a bit of dance (It’s really not Les Mis though). It’s about what it would feel like to guillotine a king… or maybe like… a billionaire? Just thinking about it, obviously not actually DOING it… just imagining… just a thought experiment… not serious, obviously we’re not serious but maybe… maybe… maybe..?
Drawing on a fiery tradition of Brechtian political theatre, five actors blast us through one of the most vital, controversial moments in European history in a completely one-sided, biased, irreverent account of what it feels like to crave a guillotine today.
