Star

From master storyteller Philip Ridley, the award-winning The Poltergeist makes its stage debut at Arcola Theatre, following a critically acclaimed streaming run at Southwark Playhouse. Darkly comic and deeply compelling The Poltergeist is “a tour-de-force performance from Joseph Potter” (Theatre Weekly) as Sasha. At fifteen Sasha was called an art world prodigy. Celebrities wanted to buy his paintings. His first exhibition was going to make him a superstar. But now he lives in a run-down flat, with his out-of-work boyfriend, and no one’s even heard of him...What went wrong? This one-man show is about art, family, memory, and being haunted by the life we never lived.

It’s a sunny, spring day in East London. On a street corner, two teenagers kiss. One of them is Toni (Georgie Henley). This is her first kiss. It makes her very happy. But someone is watching. Someone who doesn’t care about her happiness at all. And they’re about to change Toni’s life… forever. Philip Ridley’s thrilling new play is a startling exploration of identity, memory, love, and the lengths it takes someone to free themselves from the web of their past