Box Clever developed three new plays, which toured between 2007 and 2011. The first, Dirty Kissing, was developed in association with ARC, Stockton Arts Centre, and toured in 2007.
Dirty Kissing first emerged from work Box Clever was doing with Creative Partnerships in east Kent in 2004. The visibility of new migrants and, in particular, the reaction to their presence was considerable.
At the heart of the story are two key relationships: one between two young people and the other between a girl and her dad. These two relationships are recognisable in any language. Both relationships don’t really find resolution and – just like the bigger picture of an uncertain Europe on the move – they are also in transit. Ultimately, the story leaves us with a sense of optimism that the world will turn out okay.”
The Story
A kiss can be the beginning…and the end.
Scott wants power. Arun wants a quiet life. Dad wants another fix. Shaz wants Abi. Abi wants Ion. And Ion wants revenge. But what you want isn’t always what you get.
Six people get tangled up in a ruthless world of drug-running and immigration scams lurking just beneath the picture-book facade of a provincial coastal town…
A fast-moving mix of poetic theatre and intense physical action, accompanied live onstage by DJ Virgil Howe from acclaimed rockers, The Dirty Feel, Dirty Kissing takes a disturbingly close look at the bigger picture of life in modern Europe.
Reviews
“Even the show’s pace-setter, DJ Virgil Howe, pulls his trilby down low as he mixes the soundtrack of dance rhythms and psychologically disorientating ticking clocks, while choreography by movement director Georgina Lamb has a taut, claustrophobic urgency.” Read full review
“Michael Wicherek successfully portrays the transitory and ‘shaken-up’ nature of today’s Europe and explores individual struggles with new temptations that it thus inevitably creates.” Read full review
Receiving Venues
ARC (Stockton-on-Tees), MAC (Birmingham), the egg, Theatre Royal (Bath), Gulbenkian Theatre (Canterbury), The Albany (London), York Theatre Royal (York), Dukes Theatre (Lancaster)
Creative Team
Elizabeth Cadwallader (Actor); Stephen John Holgate (Actor); Sean Kearney (Actor), Emanuel Brierley (Actor); Patrick Molyneaux (Actor); Brad Damon (Actor); Michael Wicherek (Writer); Iqbal Khan (Director) Georgina Lamb (Movement Director); Virgil Howe (Musical Director & DJ); Itai Erdal (Lighting Designer); Hayley Grindle (Costume Designer); Lucy Porter (Production Manager)
