Spotlight On: ChewBoy Productions

These recent times have been some of the hardest challenges we've faced and as a community, it hit us pretty hard. However during these difficult times, here at Pocket Size Theatre, we wanted to spread a little positivity and celebrate the work that people are still managing to generate during these difficult times. In this ‘Spotlight On’ series, we'll be speaking to our friends in the industry to share what they are up to during these challenging times and how you can be involved.

Let's stick together, share the love and get through this as a community!

Here we caught up with ChewBoy Productions - Associate company to ‘The Lion and Unicorn Theatre’ and made up of Georgie, Lucy and Hal.

Can you give us a little intro into who ChewBoy Productions are and what you do?

We’re an award-winning multi-arts production company dedicated to working with emerging artists from a range of backgrounds and art forms to create inventive, slightly surreal work which aims to stick with an audience long after they’ve experienced it. Currently, we’re an Associate Company at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre and are due to bring our next theatre production there in late 2020 (corona providing), whilst also having 3 other projects in the works. We work across a range of mediums, from theatre to film to poetry to visual arts and everything in between!

So far in our little life, we’ve produced 5 large scale projects including a critically acclaimed theatre show called EUAN which enjoyed a UK Tour in 2019, alongside an experimental short film trilogy in which the audience got to decide the edit of the film they were about to see, based on their answers to questions asked prior to the screening. We also run workshops for theatre community groups, as well as creatively produce projects with young people with additional needs.

Currently, we’ve got three projects in development, and the company is being run by its two co-founders Georgie Bailey (Me) and Hal Darling, and we’re lucky enough this year to be supported by the brilliant Lucy Betts who is our Resident Director.

REVIEW: Holy Land at The Lion and Unicorn Theatre

These days it seems people will post pretty much anything on social media for a reaction. From retweets on Twitter, to emojis on Facebook, and of course double taps on Instagram, the modern day generation seems to have forgotten about the origin purpose and flip side to the World Wide Web. Enter ‘Holyland’; a place where all the darkest sides of the internet are made into reality. A place where you go to view content you know you shouldn’t, and yet can’t resist a sneak peek at, the dark mirror to YouTube, if you will.

Written by newcomer Matthew Gouldesbrough, ELEGY’s latest project of ‘Holyland’ is about to complete its run at The Lion and Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town before embarking on a full UK tour, including a spot at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show explores the prevalent and haunting matter of the darker side of both life, and the internet. 

Presented as a three hand cast, we follow three separate stories of Jon (Rick Romero), Tim (Matthew Gouldesbrough) and Kate (Hannah Marrison), all of which in turn lead us to one question; how little control do we have of human nature? Containing themes of sexual abuse, violence and disturbing footage and images, this production certainly has a highly intense and important topic at the centre of its core; a topic that as an audience member I was eager to hear more about.