Birmingham Rep to stage evocative look back.
One of this country’s most inventive and playful theatre companies, Stan’s Cafe’s return to theatres this autumn with a new version of their acclaimed show, Time Critical.
One of the company’s most thought-provoking productions, Time Critical visits Birmingham Rep on 7th-8th October.
The performance sees two competing actors tyrannised by a chess clock. With an allocation of 34 minutes each, one struggles to intercut and condense world events from 1991 to the present, while the other grapples with Stan’s Cafe shows and personal landmarks from the same period.
With the clock ticking, across 68 increasingly tense minutes the duo spin through a cycle of elections, inventions, natural disasters, treaties, product launches, sporting successes, business failures and dance sensations – condensing each landmark.
Prompting and challenging each other, the actors find themselves re-enacting strange confrontations, fragments of famous speeches and even evocative moments from old Stan’s Cafe shows (such as All Our Money) as the chess clock ticks down towards an exhilarating finale.
Starring Craig Stephens (All Our Money, The Many Lives of PET#1, River Tours) and Kianyah Caesar-Downer (BBC One’s Doctors, Community Service), Time Critical is a hilarious and captivating rush that explores how we live our lives in relation to the wider world, giving us a unique perspective on the spiralling nature of history.
Stan’s Cafe were formed in 1991 and this production was first performed for their 25th anniversary in November 2016. The reworked 2025 version is 16 minutes longer – reflecting the eventful years that have passed since the premiere.
James Yarker, Stan’s Cafe’s Artistic Director and Director of Time Critical, said: “The show makes us think about how our lives are bound up but also separate from global events. And how our big lives amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Revisiting the show has drawn our attention to how much has happened in the last eight years, but also to how much is always happening!
“Seeing so much history pass by so fast draws our attention to how perspectives change and how some things repeat, and other things spiral. It should make you laugh and make you sigh.”
For Time Critical tickets and more information, see: stans.cafe.
