Crowded Room present in association with Reading Rep Theatre OUTPATIENT By Harriet Madeley

Prepped with a pink treadmill, and a running vest, ready to tell a story based upon her own life, Harriet Madeley and Crowded Room bring their brand new production OUTPATIENT to Summerhall’s Anatomy Lecture Theatre. Harriet takes a magnifying glass to our society’s obsession with death, or obsession with avoiding it – from the rise of the zombie genre to the inevitability of demise.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024, Theatre (Comedy)

Crowded Room present in association with Reading Rep Theatre – OUTPATIENT By Harriet Madeley

 

Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre,  Dates: 1 – 26 August (not 12, not 19)

Time:  10:30 (60 mins)

“You’re going to Google it, but don’t Google it.”

 

Written by Harriet Madeley, based on her experience researching for critically-acclaimed The Colours (Soho Theatre), and directed by Madelaine Moore, OUTPATIENT follows ham-fisted journalist Olive as she attempts to interview people in a palliative care ward, eager to get the inside scoop for her article surrounding death.

Until, that is, she has to face a rare and devastating diagnosis of her own, Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis, being told she has most likely lived with the illness for ten years, and yet according to Google the life expectancy is only nine.

Unable to deal with her own mortality in a healthy manner, Olive blows up her life, breaking up with her fiancée Tess and throwing herself deeper into the article on mortality. This research leads Olive to find a moribund mate in wild, beautiful and fascinating Evelyn, who has terminal cancer.

Part thinkpiece on death, part rom-com, Harriet Madeley’s first solo show finds her periodically running on a treadmill, exploring the beauty and absurdity of human relationships, the strength of human minds, and the fragility of human bodies.

Praise for Harriet Madeley’s Hedda Gabler

“sharp and witty with heaps of semi-poetic dialogue”

★★★★★ – Spy in the Stalls

Praise for Crowded Room and Harriet Madeley’s The Listening Room
“You emerge with your consciousness altered, your conception of human beings elevated and amplified. Which is the goal of great drama…Quite unforgettable”
The Spectator

 

Twitter: @Crowded__Room

Facebook: thisiscrowdedroom

Website: thisiscrowdedroom.co.uk/

Instagram: crowded__room

Cast and Creatives

Written & performed by: Harriet Madeley

Director: Madelaine Moore

Producers: Crowded Room (Mark Knightley & Harriet Madeley)

Co-producers: Reading Rep (Paul Stacey & Nick Thompson)

Sound design: Bella Kear

Lighting design: Megan Lucas

 

Age Recommendation and Content Warnings

Suitable for ages 12 +

Some strong language & triggering themes.

Tickets

£17 / 14.50

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Crowded Room Theatre Company

Crowded Room creates theatre and audio work from real stories, aiming to ignite discussion around difficult subjects. Recent work includes: Edith – a verbatim play using court transcripts to re-examine a 100 year old trial of Edith Thompson. Made in collaboration with female inmates at HMP Styal and performed at the Lowry, Theatr Clwyd and St Johns in Gosport. La Lucha – a co-created short film made with 9 women from Latin America who are fighting back against workplace exploitation. The film was commissioned by the BAC and Co-creating Change Network and premiered at the London Migration Film Festival. The Colours – a verbatim play about the end of life. The play was performed at the Soho Theatre and further exploration of the themes developed into an audio piece entitled The Colours of Loss, which premiered at the Good Grief Festival and hosted on Apple Podcasts. They also featured on BBC Radio 4 with The Listening Room & toured the production to 20 theatres, prisons, psychiatric hospitals and schools across the UK. All work is developed and produced by Mark Knightley and Harriet Madeley.

 

Harriet Madeley

Harriet is a writer, producer and performer represented by Independent Talent. For Crowded Room, she has created and performed in The Listening Room (Stratford East/prison & UK theatre tour/ARIA-nominated BBC Radio 4), The Colours (Soho Theatre/Rowan’s Hospice), Echoes (Public Health England/prison tour) & Edith (The Lowry/Theatr Clwyd). Other recent work includes The Other Tchaikovsky (BBC Radio 4, shortlisted for a BBC Audio Drama Award) and Hedda Gabler (a Queer adapation for Reading Rep). Harriet’s work has won a Chris Donovan Trust Award and been shortlisted for Offies, an ARIA, a BBC Audio Drama Award and the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award. Harriet has a number of new projects in development for theatre & TV.

 

Reading Rep

Founded by Reading born Artistic Director Paul Stacey in 2012 with just £500, Reading Rep Theatre is rapidly emerging as one of the leading producing venues in the UK. As a disabled practitioner, Paul created the company in order to break down barriers that prevent people from accessing world class theatre. From their state-of-the-art new venue the company commissions and produces bold and experimental work with many of the UK’s leading creatives: Reinventing the classics, championing new writing and reinterpreting adaptations.

 

Madelaine Moore

Maddy’s work is informed by her interest in tackling big ideas through a feminist lens. She was on the Old Vic 12 2021 cohort & has been twice shortlisted for Sir Peter Hall Director’s Award. Recent work includes Algorithms (The Park), Edith (The Lowry/Theatr Clwyd), Evelyn (Southwark Playhouse) and Santi & Naz (Pleasance). She is also directing Son Of A Bitch at Summerhall this year.

 

Mark Knightley

Mark is co-artistic director of Crowded Room. Work for Crowded Room includes writing & directing Sentinels which premiered at the London Design Biennale and won an Engaged Research Award from King’s College London; co-creating La Lucha – a BAC commission with 9 women from Latin America fighting back against workplace exploitation; directing Echoes  (commissioned by Public Health England and performed in prisons); creating 2030 – an immersive installation commissioned by Collusion & shortlisted for the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award.

 

Bella Kear

Bella Kear is a sound designer and editor from Hertfordshire with a particular interest in new writing. She graduated with a first from LAMDA in 2021. Recent work includes The Animal Kingdom (Hampstead), Edith (The Lowry/Theatr Clwyd), Invisible (Bush Theatre), Elephant (Bush Theatre).

 

Megan Lucas

Megan Lucas is a lighting designer and technician. She works for Royal and Derngate, Northampton as well as the Cambridge Arts Theatre as a lighting technician, and as a freelance designer working across several theatrical productions and venues, most recently as Lighting Designer for The Masks We Wear at the Royal in Northampton. She is also a freelance Architectural Designer and the Chair and co-founder of the Northampton Arts Lab.