By Colin Swash
ADC Theatre, Cambridge, 01 – 05 October 2024, 19:45
The Man Who Argued Himself To Death
What’s it like when it becomes a crime to say ‘I Don’t Know’?
The Big Olive. Athens. Before B.C. existed. The populists are on the rise and they’re looking for a scapegoat.
Sound familiar? Any old goat will do. Enter Socrates. He opens his mouth and soon he’s on trial for his life.
The Man Who Argued Himself To Death, a blisteringly funny satirical comedy by Colin Swash (The Queen, Have I Got News For You).
Below photographs by Paul Ashley
”I feel very lucky that the play has found such a terrific bunch of committed, talented people.
Colin SwashPlaywright
Audience feedback for The Man Who Argued Himself to Death
- “Pacey, thought-provoking, intelligent, funny and with pathos, a thoroughly entertaining evening.”
- “Funny and clever. The whole show beautifully acted and directed!”
- “It was brilliant!” (“define brilliant…”)
- “Ideas from the play keep popping back into my mind, if the show continued I would be tempted to go again honestly.”
- “A riveting, mind-expanding evening at the theatre… delivered with a sense of reactive timing and un-formulaic rhythm, making every new entrance or scene utterly compelling. Socrates was mesmeric…. truly sumptuous stage pictures were formed, and the silhouette after the hemlock moment was sublime. An expertly balanced production.”
- “A top-flight production, I loved it and have been thinking about it since and how tragicomic its effects were.”
- “A beautiful production of an entertaining, poignant play with a deeply charismatic and talented ensemble.”
- “A towering performance from Peter Simmons as Socrates, raising the fundamental question of life: does being an incredibly irritating philosophical pedant who cannot let anything go really merit death? Answer: Yes.”