Dead Cats

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Presented by The Lowry + Word of Warning as a WTF · Updated 5 Jan 2023

In rooms like this room, people lie.
Not little lies, but the kinds of lies that kill people, or worse…

Ticketing

Pay What You Decide: suggested amount £5 | Book online or call The Lowry on 0343 208 6000

Time: Wednesday 4 May 2022, 8pm (no interval, ends about 9.15pm)
Location: The Lowry (Aldridge Studio), Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ

Access

Age Advisory: 14+ (parental/guardian discretion).
Content Warnings: may disturb, please click here for specific warnings.
Features: spoken + projected text, composed sound, pre-recorded film + audio.
Covid measures: we strongly recommend audience members wear masks within The Lowry unless exempt; please get in touch if you have any queries.
Queries: please call The Lowry on 0161 876 2183 or email access@thelowry.com

About

In this room, or in rooms like this room, they use phrases like “collateral damage”, like “extraordinary rendition”, like “perception management”.
They cover up their dirty words with clean ones, in rooms like this room.
In rooms like this room, they redact the names.
In rooms like this room, language is laundered.
The name of the game is spin.

Dead Cats blends new writing, performance, film-making, and an obvious plant, to show — not tell — the truths behind the fictions.

Part three of Proto-type’s critically-acclaimed Truth to Power Project: a socially-engaged exploration of power, democracy, truth-telling, protest, privacy, conspiracy, and control that began as a response to the UK political climate in 2015 — it has since manifested as a wealth of creative, cultural, and participatory activity that seeks to shed light on the complex, hidden systems that govern how we live our lives.

Below you can also watch A Dangerous Thing — their new, digitally animated work created in response to a world full of uncertainty.
It wants to punch its way out of the screen and into our homes.
It wants to shake us up, to wake us up, and to hunt down all those insidious lies, hiding in plain sight, that run ahead of us with their boots on.
It’s coming, and it cannot be stopped…

Artists

A company of multi-disciplinary artists led by Rachel Baynton, Gillian Lees + Andrew Westerside, Proto-type create original performance work that is diverse in scale, subject, and medium. Since 1997 they’ve made work and supported young artists in Armenia, China, France, the Netherlands, Russia, the UK, the US, and Zimbabwe.

Their Truth to Power Project has lifted the veil on The Secret State (A Machine they’re Secretly Building — in Spring17), shown how collective power can move a mountain (The Audit (or Iceland, a modern myth) — in Spring18), and includes a radio drama with the BBC (The Forgotten Suffragette).

They’ve also made a multimedia opera featuring a live laptop orchestra (The Good, the God and the Guillotine — in Spring14) and a two-week theatre and pervasive technology experience (Fortnight).

Reviews

★★★★ Smartly intelligent hour-long whizz through the world of surveillance… Coolly reasoned theatre
 — Lyn Gardner, The Guardian on A Machine…
★★★★ Seeps into the sub-conscious… Chilling, intelligent and witty
 — The List on A Machine…
Such imagination and clarity of vision… great antidote to (a) tangled political landscape
 — Exeunt on the Truth to Power Project
Made me want to headbutt a bank
 — Audience Response to The Audit

Credits

Written + directed by Andrew Westerside
Devised + performed by Rachel Baynton + Gillian Lees
Film, design, promotional images by Adam York Gregory
Original sound by Paul J. Rogers
Set by Alex Kent + Lincoln Performing Arts Centre

Produced by Gillian Lees
Marketing + comms by Rachel Baynton
Production Assistants: Curtis Clapham + Elisha Pearce
Technical Manager: Myk Hoyle
Stage Manager: Dan Firth

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Made possible through the continued support of ARC (Stockton), hÅb, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, The Lowry, Theatre-in-the-Mill (Bradford).

Websites

proto-type.org · Proto-type on Facebook · @Proto_type · #DeadCats

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