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Cutting the Tightrope

 
Alec Martin Review by Alec Martin 4 Published: 16 Aug 2025 Church Hill Theatre Show Dates: 14 Aug 2025-17 Aug 2025

How do you make theatre about a catastrophe that is still happening? An ongoing genocide, where the tragedies of each day outpace your rehearsal notes? Cutting the Tightrope attempts to answer – urgently, if imperfectly – by refusing to pretend distance. A compendium of short pieces assembled at speed and staged with momentum, it gathers artists who won’t accept that “neutrality” is the safest posture. The evening is part rallying cry, part reckoning with the limits of art when the news keeps getting worse.

Part rallying cry, part reckoning with the limits of art when the news keeps getting worse.

The project’s roots matter. It was born out of growing censorship in the UK arts funding climate – those chilly memos and guidelines about “political activity” that have landed like riot shields in the halls of UK cultural and political power, aggressively pushing back on protest against the massacre of Palestinians. The show treats that context not as preface but as subject: programmers second-guess themselves, a festival official engages in an increasingly unhinged battle with a watermelon, artists argue over language while counting bodies. You can feel the fight over what art is for running through the veins of the production.

As an experience, it’s deliberately rough-edged. The bill – eleven pieces by a dozen writers – doesn’t chase polish so much as pressure; quality varies, but purpose doesn’t. Self-reflexive sketches about timidity in middle-class homes rub up against testimonies that carry the broken lives of Gaza, where hope lies strewn across the rubble like rose petals in the ruin of a bombed-out florist’s shop. At times, the meta-theatrical handwringing risks indulgence. Yet just when you think the night might turn inward, a monologue lands with a thud of lived detail – like a Walthamstow cat-sitter finding hope in a community united against fascism.

Is it uneven? Of course. But that unevenness feels ethically honest for a work made in the blast radius of an ongoing atrocity. What lingers is not a single killer scene but the collective refusal to look away and ignore what’s happening – not only on the ground in Gaza, but in our own halls of power, where state-mandated silences and profit-protecting agendas make this country complicit in the killing. Cutting the Tightrope may not tidy the world, but it makes the case – loudly, vulnerably – that art should risk its voice when lives are at stake.

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The Blurb:

SCOTTISH PREMIERE

This collection of short plays audaciously explores the power of the arts in today's world events, political resistance and displays of artistic freedom. 

Following a sell-out debut at London’s Arcola Theatre in 2024, Cutting the Tightrope dives into the ever-tightening grip of censorship on artistic freedom. Created in response to silence around Palestine on UK stages, this collection of political plays arrives at the International Festival with a fresh wave of urgency.

Written by a dynamic roster of playwrights, the pieces cut to the heart of contemporary struggles – from war zones to the silencing of dissent. Praised as ‘powerful, important, moving’ by Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the show unflinchingly challenges the silencing of expression.Expect an evening of daring, thought-provoking theatre that refuses to shy away from the truth. These voices demand to be heard."Last year, Arts Council England warned arts companies and those who work for them against making overtly political or activist statements. This collection of short plays is the urgent artistic response to that moment and audaciously explores the power of the arts in today's world events, political resistance and dialogue around artistic freedom" - Nicola Benedetti, Festival Director 

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There will be a post-show talk after every performance. It will begin shortly after the performance ends and is expected to last approximately 40 minutes. You are welcome to stay for as little or as long as suits you.

The guest panelists at each performance of Cutting the Tightrope are as follows:Thu 14 Aug: Hamish Morrison, Barnaby Raine, and Eman Alhaj AliFri 15 Aug: Jess Brough, Leena Nammari and Faisal SalehSat 16 Aug: Humza Yousaf (MSP), Asil Sidahmed and Dina NayeriSun 17 Aug: Sara Sharaawi, Kendall Garnder, Lina Dohia

All post-show talks for Cutting the Tightrope are moderated by poet Zena Agha.