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8-bit Dream

 
Richard Beck Review by Richard Beck 3 Published: 4 Aug 2025 C ARTS | C venues | C aquila Show Dates: 1 Aug 2025-10 Aug 2025

It’s always a pleasure to see what bonkers piece of theatre Offie-nominated Square Pegs – Macready Theatre Young Actors’ Company – will come up with next. They’re at C Arts Aquila again, this time with 8-bit Dream, directed by Tim Coker and written by Ben Grant, a co-artistic director at Electrick Village Theatre Company, who also directs at the Identity School of Acting.

Fast-paced, fun-filled story-telling.

This year’s show takes a sideways look at modern culture in an absurd and quirky comedy packed with physicality, movement sequences and a good measure of sound and music. It takes us back to an analogue age when telephones had wires and handsets, and television had only a few channels. In a modern world where so much is fake, their fast-paced, fun-filled storytelling plies us with time-travelling tales of nostalgia and a search for meaning. The cast look spectacular in their uniforms of brilliant white dungarees and vivid plain T-shirts in three colours – orange, blue and yellow – divided between the troupe.

This year’s company comprises: Amelia Barton; Toby Davies; Daisy Donne; Celia Duffy; Elsa Melia; Maggie Poszewiecka; Lily-Rose Pitcher; Albie Tuckwell; and Billy Wright-Evans, with movement by Ellen Finlay. The ensemble includes artists from Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. Regulars from previous years have now moved on, but this new group continues the tradition of providing sparkling entertainment, although this year’s offering is less crazy than usual.

It still makes for a fun-filled 45 minutes, and it’s always great to see such an enthusiastic and well-rehearsed group of young people making energetic theatre – and clearly enjoying every minute of it.

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The Blurb:

Eight teenagers take you back in time to an analogue age when telephones had wires and television was not so demanding. Square Pegs return with a brand-new, life-imitating-art play about growing up, which asks lots of questions about what it means to be human, but offers absolutely no answers whatsoever. Join Macready Theatre’s Offie-nominated Young Actors for 45 minutes of absurdist, fast-paced, fun-filled storytelling, to share time-travelling tales of nostalgia and a yearning for meaning when all seems fake. ‘A short spectacular showcase’ ***** (TheMumble.uk). ‘Another joyous bag of wild imagination, comedy and physicality’ **** (BroadwayBaby.com).