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shows: ENGLAND

by Tim Crouch

Directed by Tim Crouch, Karl James and a smith.
Performed by Tim Crouch and Hannah Ringham.

“When I’m with my boyfriend I think that anything is possible. I wish that I wasn’t so ill so that we could have sex. We used to have really good sex.  He knows so much about art, which is why he would love it here at the Fruitmarket Gallery. I don’t know anything, really. I look at these things and I don’t really understand them. I like them, but my boyfriend would understand them. He says that good art is art that sells.”

View a video excerpt from the Edinburgh production.

Read the reviews

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ENGLAND was commissioned by The Traverse Theatre Company. It is a news from nowhere production, produced in partnership with The Traverse Theatre Company, Fruitmarket Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre and Culturgest (Lisbon). ENGLAND was developed at the National Theatre Studio and is supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and the Arts Council England.

ENGLAND premiered within an exhibition of work by Alex Hartley, at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, as part of the Edinburgh Festival, from 3–26 August 2007.

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Press

Download the Edinburgh Festival press release pdf, 68kb

Have a look at the images.

read The List Magazine interview with Tim Crouch about ENGLAND

 

“The patients like to look at the paintings. It helps them to feel better about their illnesses.”

Forget thoughts of skinheads or nostalgia, ENGLAND is about an empire of a different kind – one of transmigrations and transplantations. It’s the story of one thing placed inside another: a heart inside another person’s body, a culture inside another country’s culture, theatre inside a gallery, a character inside an actor, a play inside its audience.

Performed by two guides within an exhibition, ENGLAND travels the trade routes of art and human beings. It’s about a sickness and the search for health at any cost. It’s a tour through space and across borders: from an art gallery to a jam factory, from Edinburgh to Osaka, from a hospital bed to a hotel room.

It’s a tour to the end of the world.

“She asks why this has happened to her family. She says she wants to know if you have an answer.”

ENGLAND is a pictogram of a search for a new heart. It continues Tim Crouch’s fascination with the nature of the theatrical experience; the communication of an idea from performer to audience – and back again. ENGLAND is performed in thin air, within space, between people. It is supported by a soundtrack by award-winning sound designer Dan Jones. The two actors are Tim Crouch and Hannah Ringham, a founder member of the Shunt Collective in London. ENGLAND is directed by Karl James and the artist a smith, both of whom worked with Tim Crouch on his play AN OAK TREE.