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The Green, Green Grass of Home: Mr Jones An Aberfan Story - Finborough Theatre

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A life of hope and promise, interrupted, lies at the heart of Mr Jones: an Aberfan Story. The play follows two young people in Aberfan before and after the disaster that killed 144 people, including 116 children. It’s an emotional coming-of-age tale of intersecting lives, family, love, and the shock of tragedy. With two vivid performances and strong characterisations, you feel immersed in 1960s Welsh small-town life. It’s now running at the Finborough Theatre , after performances at the Edinburgh Festival and across Wales.  The Aberfan disaster is well known in the UK but perhaps less so elsewhere. The facts of the tragedy are confined to the programme notes rather than in the piece. On 21 October 1966, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on a mountain above Aberfan engulfed a local school, killing many. The play avoids the causes and negligence, instead focusing on those working and building lives in the town.  Writer-performer Liam Holmes plays Stephen Jones, a...

Last chance for something completely different: Karagula @wearepigdog


In it’s final week in a disused bar in Tottenham is Philip Ridley’s Karagula.

It’s an amibitious dystopian work that has been baffling audiences for the past month. There are various worlds coliding in the piece. Time and narrative shifts to tell a story of rebellion against totalitarian regimes.



One regime insists the world should be 1950s apple pie and milkshakes. Anyone who challenges this gets shot. Or they just shoot people anyway. Another world dispenses with all sorts of personal traits and wears white suits and talk calmly and malevolently...

There are also tales from primitive societies and what could be the forerunner of a new religion.

Anyway it’s ambitious, mind boggling physical theatre in an unforgiving space... Not Tottenham, but the cavernous empty Styx bar space which serves as the backdrop for this crazy adventure.


I caught an early preview of it and I have avoided milkshakes ever since. But you can catch it and have a Neopolitan-style pizza in the forecourt of the venue before the show. Or spend time there at interval wondering what’s it all about.

A production from emerging company PIGDOG, which aims to use experimental forms of theatre to explore a range of issues, including accessibility, equality and gender politics.

Karagula concludes this week on 9 July. It certainly is something for those that like their theatre to be a little bit different...

Photo credit: production photos by Lara Genovese / Naiad Photography


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