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"By masterfully weaving the experience of professional actors together with the raw talent of young budding performers, in writing that risks antagonism for its authenticity and emotional honesty, Mayhem undoubtedly works!"
Eugene Washington Actor
The Mayhem Company's BIG BRITAIN Series - ELEPHANT 21
Great fun, a lively, visually-accomplished romp...and crackling with life. Time Out - Critics Choice ****
Elephant 21 - a play with one hundred lives – by Sarah May. All families have secrets...the Valentines are about to find out theirs. These are the true stories of the people who have lived and loved in London's lost quarter - the Elephant and Castle - over the past one hundred years as told through four generations of Valentines in a play about war, Sarsparilla, Knickerbocker glories, more war, suicide, jiving, and unrequited love. Currently the focus of one of Europe's largest urban regeneration programmes, we invite you to take part in your heritage before it becomes history.
Following our critically acclaimed sell out out run in July 2010 at Royal Court's Theatre Local - Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre - we re-staged the play for one performance only at Southwark Council's Tooley Street Headquaters on the 25 October by invitation of the Council's Chief Executive.
Last year Mayhem created a unique company of 35 professional and non-professional actors to bring you a story that made you sit up and think again about an iconic area that you may have only heard about, passed through or been all too ready to leave!
Time Out says Critics Choice ****
By Andrzej Lukowski
...Sarah May's play, based upon interviews conducted with several generations of E&C denizens, is an extremely enjoyable piece of writing, while husband Ben May's production is great fun, a lively, visually-accomplished romp in which a huge cast of professional actors and locally-sourced amateurs are virtually indistinguishable.
The story follows the female members of the Valentine family from WWI to the present day; the tone is not unakin to a really, really good episode of EastEnders, crammed with incident, full of people saying things like 'ee's only gone and gassed 'imself!' But it's the detail that counts, and 'Elephant 21' is bursting with rich little anecdotes, while the choreography is excellent, actors constantly bursting out of the audience, some ferociously lively dancefloor scenes, and smart physicality used to indicate the passage of time...it's a hoot, crackling with life, cackling with one liners that'd be sharp in any era.
Elephant 21 has been generously supported by
