(CIRCLE DREAMS AROUND) THE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE PAST by Simon Longman​

​About CIRCLE DREAMS

​A play about being young in the fields and towns that feel far away from where things might be happening; a play about the expectations of life and the circularity of human existence.
Someone has a recurring dream. It’s a bit weird. There are fish, chickens, cows, who all look and sound like people - people who look kind of familiar. And there’s a butcher, killing people. And the dream feels like a circle; going round and round and back to the start again. They can’t get free of it; it’s like a line eating its own arse.

Which means we’re stuck in their dream too, watching it with them. We see the fields and rivers they visit in the half light. And raves they’ve been to with people jumping out of the windows and losing their legs. And the careers advisor from school advising jobs like being a water carrier, or a chimney sweep, or a candlestick maker or a fishmonger. They dream about the past mainly, a past that they don’t belong to but the past wants to belong to them. It’s forcing its way inside, so that their future looks like the past.

See? It’s a bit weird. It always starts with someone selling someone some crabs and it all gets progressively surreal from there. And there doesn’t seem to be any way out.

​Southwark Playhouse’s Young Company is a dynamic theatre company for 11 - 18 year olds. They develop performance skills through free weekly workshops, before putting them into practice in professionally supported performances at Southwark Playhouse.
​ 
Circle Dreams is part of Connections, the National Theatre’s annual, nationwide youth theatre festival. Every year, Connections commissions new plays for young people to perform, bringing together some of the UK’s most exciting writers with the theatre-makers of tomorrow.

​Directors:  David Gilbert & Amaarah Roze
Assistant Director: Theo Ray
Set and Costume Designer: Francesc Serra Vila
Lighting Designer: Chris Silvester
Video Designer: Fergus Carver
Stage Manager:  Sophie Spencer
Assistant Stage Manager: Jaylie Wayling

Performers:
Joyin Fatile
Templar Harrison-Brady
Chatchan Khabthong
Jeremiah Khan
Muhammad Majeed
Amber Meyrick
Jonathan Mwambazi
Faith Okpunmwan
Oliver Pidgeon


CIRCLE DREAMS was performed at Southwark Playhouse (London, 17-18 Mach 2023) and Peckham Theatre (London, 31 March 2023)