Imagine if Films

Seven days

Seven people

Seven deadly sins

Which is yours?

A Human Condition is a black comedy focusing on the Seven Deadly Sins and the lives of seven contrasting characters, all connected by the recruitment company they work for.

‘A duplicitous place full of manipulation and deceit.’

This series forces audiences to look at their personal behaviour and shines a light on some of the uglier sides of the ‘human condition’.

‘A comical study into the darker side of the human psyche.’

‘Shine a light in the darkness of your soul’

Three thrilling new plays to stir the senses, written by Laura Bacon.

What if the lives of seven random people on a train were connected somehow, and what is this life we are given all about?

“It’s funny, when I was a kid all I wanted to do was lay out in front of the stars, smoke weed, write equations and catch carp. That was the dream back then. Why can’t everything still be as simple? Why did it have to become so complicated?”

The story of Domino focuses primarily on the character Mike Towner , who is struggling to make sense of the world and his life within it. As his reality continues to blur from state to state, Mike is not in a good way. He has befriended a talking trout whilst out fishing and is desperately searching for a design for … the plan.

At the same time, a train becomes stuck on the tracks between two stations, and the lives of seven people within one of the carriages are explored in more detail. Buttons are pushed and games are played. Do our actions in life have consequences, and how do we achieve true fulfilment and happiness in the short time we are given here on Earth?

As Mike continues his search to find answers to explain the story of his life, he yearns to find a design that will lead him to the plan. In his quest he meets some unlikely friends along the way, a collacine of maggots, a talking trout named Trevor (who becomes his trusted advisor), and Mike then really begins to understand the nature of the game. Mike’s story is one of contemplation, sadness, and grappling with his own mind against a world that doesn’t support him.

“We’re conditioned to pair up, you know? From an early age, they feed us the two by two bullshit. Snap, Dominoes, Noah and his fucking Ark … all of that. And I wanted to play, I tried to play like everyone else – to match off into a neat little pair. But for some of us, we don ’t quite … fit. And we lose. We lose the game. That or life takes great pleasure in sideswiping you into becoming a Clinical Research Analyst for erectile dysfunction products.”

At the same time, on a gloomy night, a last train leaving London suddenly grinds to a halt and the lives of the people inside one of the carriages begin to have a domino effect on each other. From strangers, to confidantes, to friends, to enemies, Domino delves deep into the psyche of the people on the train, exploring the repelling and attracting natures of their personalities.

The format of Domino has two narrative structures (in effect crossing in opposite directions) which follow Mike and his story and the passengers within the halted carriage. The result of these two opposing timelines colliding is explosive, with an incredible twist unfolding at the end of the play.

Domino dares to pose difficult questions about life and our connection and disconnection with the world we live in today. It has a dystopian, absurdist energy running throughout, with surreal, dream-like elements weaving through the writing and staging, including some larger than life characters who represent a full, bold, colourful cross-section of society.

Domino is a thrilling piece of theatre, tackling the difficult subjects of death, loss and relationships in a new and exciting way, prompting audiences to think deeply about their own interactions with strangers after leaving the theatre.

Can we all live happily ever after, and what does it really mean to ‘grow up’? What happens after the fairytale has ended?

And They All Lived is a non-linear, twisted tale spanning three different timelines interweaving the fascinating, strange lives of the Brothers Grimm and their folklore characters. The story focuses initially on the lives of the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm and moves between three time periods – when they are ten year old boys lost in a forest, to their adult lives dealing with their success and finally to a modern day setting where the lives of the characters from the Grimm Tales are explored twenty-eight years beyond the end of each the tale. Fractured childhood and lost innocence are both explored, as all the characters desperately try to keep the wolf from the door.

The Brothers Grimm struggled with their health, and their childhoods were littered with difficult experiences and ghosts of loss from their past. The play loosely follows a biographical timeline with their achievements but dares to go further, examining the root behind their extremely close bond, as even after Wilhelm married, he continued to live with his brother Jacob until the time of his death. Jacob’s obsession with words and documenting the truth led to many disputes between the brothers, and we see what prompted them to collect and collate such a vast catalogue of stories across Europe.

Where this piece has originality and modern bite, is in the modern day interpretations of the Grimms’ characters. Throughout the play, the scenes puncture the experiences the Grimms’ are having and echo the pains of the brothers in their world, as they are all linked together by the threat of ‘The Wolf’. Each of the fairy tale characters are placed in a modern setting, and we see them twenty-eight years after their fairy tale endings, when they have entered supposed ‘adulthood’.

Here, ‘Hector’ /Hansel and ‘Glenda’/ Gretel live in a Peckham high rise flat and Hector is n ow so obese he can’t leave the flat due to his enormous size, with Glenda left as an anorexic chain smoker and Hector’s full-time carer. We also meet Red Riding Hood (now known simply as ‘Little Hood’) who has been arrested and is being questioned by police officers. Her dealings with ‘The Wolf’ have been terrifying to say the least.

‘Ronald’ /Rumplestiltskin now works in a pound shop and is struggling to cope with his incredible rage, ‘Rachel’ /Rapunzel is totally bald and is now incarcerated in a mental asylum. Finally, ‘Bella’ /Belle and her husband ‘Brian’ /Beast live in a mock mansion on Canvey Island, where she resides, desperately unhappy with her countless plastic surgery operations that Brian insisted she had.

The play has massive contemporary bite, as we are all struggling to some extent as adults to maintain the wonder of life, as society tries to drag us down. We are sold happily ever after as children, but what do we actually end up with? How can this be sustained, and is it really achievable? Because And They All Lived switches time periods, it manages to give fresh insight into the lives of the two men who touched the childhoods of countless generations. We have all come into contact with one or more of the Grimms’ fairy tales, the stories are imprinted onto our very consciousness as a society from a young age. So the devices within this play format allow us to delve deeper into the darker recesses of what prompted the men to catalogue the tales and champion them, thus understanding their impact o n popular culture.

Roll up roll up for the Great All-American Circus! But as the crowds begin to dwindle and the sequins lose their sparkle, can love and life exist outside the Big Top and the make-believe world of circus life?

The Day the Clowns Cried is a historical piece focusing on forbidden love and the death of the 1940s circus. The play focuses primarily on the relationship between a Ringmaster and his top clown and explores the demise of the travelling circus and its slow death in American society – as fuelled by the Hartford Circus fire, one of America’s greatest ever fire tragedies. This is a beautifully comic and yet tragic play, which gives a window into the hidden lives of a forgotten world and is an unlikely love story set against the Big Top curtain.

“Laaaaadies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages. May I welcome you to the most marvellous, the most magical, the most spectacular show known to mankind … the greeeeeeatest show of all tiiiiiime … Hartford Brother’s Travelling Circuuuuuus!!!!!!!”

The play focuses on Ira, a Jewish/Irish American travelling Ringmaster and the owner of the Hartford Brothers circus. Married to the show’s German strong woman ‘Helga The Earth quake’, Ira is struggling with ticket sales and with how to keep morale high within the carnival folk he employs. He ends up developing an unlikely affair with the head clown Bebo after they find a deep affinity with one another. 

Bebo never speaks or takes off his make-up or costume, and only communicates through the language of clowning. He manages to cheer Ira’s weary heart and their relationship continues to develop, as Bebo finally allows Ira to be seen for who he truly is away from the top hat, jacket and bolshy Ringmaster persona.

As morale continues to wain throughout the circus troupe, the fears and realities of life in the 1940s and the impending war begin to bleed through into the thoughts and manifestations of the characters. Bebo and Ira’s bond, however, blossoms further as their gentle and very tender love and respect for one another unfolds. A non-physical love, both characters ‘see each other’ as Ira is finally heard for who he truly is and Bebo’s humour and talent s are finally appreciated. A beautiful and tender love affair, it culminates in them deciding to elope, as pressures from the circus world continue to encroach upon them.

“Damn circus has us all performing our roles no better than the monkeys we get to do tricks and keep in cages. We ain’t no better than them, you know.”

In attempting to leave the circus world and all they have ever known, they come up against some shocking revelations on the night of the escape. The play also echoes the tragic Hartley Circus fire where a circus Big Top in a small town, Hartford, Connecticut caught fire in 1944 and engulfed the audience, killing 167 people and injuring more than 700.

The play is an unlikely love story between two souls trapped in a world that is decaying and dying around them. As American culture begins to shift away from live shows (and with the introduction of television into people’s homes) coupled with the move into wartime, the travelling Circus is presented as a dying age and the Hartley fire a horrendous message to echo the change in feeling from society at the time.