Shape of the Pain

Chris Thorpe was a founder member of Unlimited Theatre and still works and tours with the company. He is also an Artistic Associate of live art/theatre company Third Angel. He has worked with, among others, Forest Fringe, Slung Low, Chris Goode, RashDash, Belarus Free Theatre and Portuguese experimental company mala voadora - his fourth piece for the company, Your Best Guess opened at Lisbon's Almada festival in 2015. He also plays guitar in Lucy Ellinson's political noise project #TORYCORE and works with the National Student Drama Festival. Chris is an Associate at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. His play for the Exchange, There Has Possibly Been An Incident was selected by Simon Stephens for the Stuckemarktin Berlin, 2014. It has been produced in Denmark and Sweden, on German radio, and is has been produced in Saarbrucken and Vienna, with more productions in the pipeline. He has an ongoing collaboration with director Rachel Chavkin from New York's TEAM. Their first piece Confirmation, is currently touring internationally and they are starting to develop their next. His other main collaborator is poet Hannah Jane Walker with whom he made The Oh Fuck Moment and I Wish I Was Lonely. Currently, Chris is touring Confirmation and Unlimited's Am I Dead Yet? He is writing a new version of Beowulf for the Unicorn Theatre, and has written a new piece, Victory Condition, for the Royal Court which will be produced there in 2017. He recently wrote Chorus for The Iphegenia Quartet at The Gate Theatre. He is also working on The Mysteries for the Royal Exchange with Sam Pritchard, who directed There Has Possibly Been An Incident. His piece for director Rachel Bagshaw, The Shape of the Pain,is currently in development. The texts for There Has Possibly Been An Incident and Confirmation, as well as work with Hannah Jane Walker, are published by Oberon Books. His work with mala voadora is published in English and Portuguese.Chris is the Arvon mentor for playwrighting, 2016/17.Rachel Bagshaw is a theatre-maker & director. Credits include Icons (WOW Festival Hull), Hamlet (Young Vic) Resonance at the Still Point of Change (Unlimited Festival/Southbank Centre), The Rhinestone Rollers and Just Me, Bell (Graeae). Rachel is co-director of Blazon Theatre and is an Associate Artist at Wilton’s and The Bush.

Exhilarating theatre. Funny and sad and wise. ****