The Dying of Today

Overview

Do you like bad news I do I’ll give you bad news if you want it why do you prefer bad news I ask myself do you like grief do you like chaos not at all only I think men are more beautiful flung down than standing up. 

A man walks into a barbershop with the worst news there has ever been. The conversation that follows will destroy two lives and an entire civilisation in this dreadfully funny play that typifies the strangeness, wit, and grandeur of Barker’s work.

The Dying of Today is a play about bad news. How we feel compelled to share it, how even as your heart is in your mouth, some part of you is experiencing the thrill of your own survival and you feel a burning desire to tell another person, to share that feeling. The play is the story of the military defeat in 413BC that led to the fall of Athens. A historic account claims that news of the impending disaster reached the city via a single man, who, disorientated and filthy, wandered into a barbershop and began to talk. The story he told was unbelievable but true, and spelled the end of the dream of democracy for thousands of years.

Part of the 'Life in Close-Up' season.

Running time: 60 minutes.

Cast & Creatives

Tickets

Dates:

24 – 31 March, 1 – 11 April

7.30pm.

£12.50/10.50 conc.

£5 tickets available for jobseekers (proof of status required).