Award winning writer Laura Harper will bring her newest comedy/drama to Salford as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival in July.
The play, entitled ‘A Quick Guide To Ruining your Life’ , has been described as ‘a warm, relatable and poignant story’ that explores the honest and frank lengths that we go to when we want to hide from the truth.
Despite ultimately being a comedy, with some parts described as farcical, the play explores much deeper and relatable scenarios in life, such as trouble with alcohol dependency and how it can affect relationships in everyday life.
The announcement of it’s arrival at the festival comes after a community meeting of several hundred local theatre artists and practitioners, who mutually agreed that the Manchester Fringe scene needs to take itself more seriously and produce high quality theatre and entertainment, to give it a boost in reputation.
Harper was inspired to write the play after a conversation with friends about the kinds of things they have done to avoid embarrassment. Once she had the premise, she was keen to discuss how this kind of situation fed into the subconscious of the British Working Class.
The pressure to succeed, especially for those who left school at sixteen years old and worked their way up through the ranks is a source of both immense pride and stress. If you have any kind of insecurity about your position in a workforce, it’s even more important to feel that people take you seriously, and that they aren’t laughing at you behind your back.
That your reputation remains spotless. So, all the more reason to make them think you’re #livingyourbestlife, be it through your own bravado, word of mouth or the ever-increasing digital minefield that is social media.
Another inspiration for the play came from the autobiography, The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, by Catherine Gray. Catherine talks candidly about how her drinking habits used to be equally matched to her friends, before alcohol took over her life.
Harper was keen to look into the impact of many Brits who work full time jobs, frequent the gym and also manage to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. It seems to be a national phenomenon, so Harper felt that is was important to talk about this in the play.
A Quick Guide To Ruining Your Life will be on at the Kings arms in Salford on the following dates, with tickets priced at £7.
Monday 1st July (7.30 pm)
Saturday 6th July (2pm)
Sunday 7th July (4pm)
Tickets are now on sale at: https://manchesterfringe.eventotron.com/?event=37120
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