Deutsch Intern
Anglistik und Amerikanistik

EDG performs "Popcorn" by Ben Elton

01/15/2016

Performance dates: 27th, 28th & 29th January 2016, 8pm @ Stadtmensa

Bruce Delamitri shoots movies. Wayne and Scout shoot people. In the night after the Oscars, art and reality clash when Wayne and Scout, a pair of psychopaths known as the Mall Murderers, pay Bruce a visit at his Hollywood home where he is just about to make love to Brooke Daniels, a model/actress eager to land a part in Bruce’s next movie. However, Scout and Wayne want more than just an autograph from their idols: armed to the teeth, they want Bruce to publicly admit that the violence displayed in his movies is responsible for their killings, raising the question of whether art imitates life, life imitates art, or life imitates bad art. Things get even more intense with the arrival of Bruce’s soon to be ex-wife, his spoiled teenage daughter, and his concerned producer. But Wayne and Scout have a plan and they are willing to do whatever it takes to go through with it.

In this prize-winning comedy cum thriller, Ben Elton satirizes movies such as Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers or Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. But Popcorn is about more than just gratuitous violence and gun pointing on the big screen; it is about finger pointing and the question of who is to blame: the individual? the director? the media? Or the society consuming the films? In the play guilt gets passed on like a hot potato. Eventually the audience will make up their own mind - but only after a finale that leaves them breathless.

 

Ticket Info: see Flyer

 

"Popcorn is a satirical comedy thriller with the firepower of a hit squad." - Samuel French Ltd.

"Bloodcurdling comedy." - London Sunday Times 

"First rate entertainment, funny, gripping and genuinely thought provoking." - Daily Telegraph 

"This is Ben Elton at his gruesome, satirical best." - Daily Mail

"An enjoyable, intelligent, though-provoking play." - Independent. 

"It thrills on stage precisely because it adopts the sick humour, sickening violence and downright sexiness of the Stone-Tarantino school of film-making that Elton is satirising." - Evening Standard

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