Swines, 47-49 Tanner Street

Emerging theatre company, Bad Host, invite you to join their site-specific gameshow-inspired interactive performance that examines the new and often frightening rules of modern society. 

Rather aptly, Swines is being staged at the same venue where Dragon's Den is filmed — a Victorian warehouse near Tower Bridge. The production was originally workshopped in Oxford then debuted last year at the Roundhouse Theatre as part of The Accidental Festival. It's described by its three creators as "The b****rd child of a British game show and hardcore bingo tournaments, mixed with some cheap biscuits and glitter for good measure."

The Premise

Swines is a satire on capitalism, set in a dystopian future, with the audience being initiated into a kind of recruitment programme, guided by the actors in roles of gameshow hosts and MCs. Audiences must compete for jobs— arm-wrestling, choosing between biscuits— to determine their possible future. People are encouraged to keep score on blank CVs— four points for pro-activeness if you sat in the front row. It's all vibrant, fun and acidic. But the gameshow is concealing a dark reality. Swines' Britain is run by big business; the Amazons and Googles of the future, the population stuck in hopeless and endless routine.  

The Background

If you liked Money the Gameshow at the Bush Theatre last year, or the dramatic dystopia of the Almeida's 1984 (now in the West End), we recommend this subversive piece of new writing. One of the brains behind it is Bad Host member, Catriona Kerridge , part of the Royal Court Young Writers Group, and about to open her play Fast Track with HighTide Festival this October. Part of her research for Swines includes the Dutch Big Donor Show hoax where viewers were made to believe contestants were competing for a kidney transplant; and also Guinea Pigs , where the presenters pretended to eat human flesh. 

Audiences have described Swines as " brilliantly conceived " and " very funny. " If you like your theatre on the very cutting edge of innovation or with a surreal twist, immersive yourself in this thrilling production as it gathers momentum on the fringe