Snowflake
Get your Snowflake tickets for yet another piece of magic from Mike Bartlett
Snowflake was initially composed for Oxford’s Old Fire Station. The venue is in partnership with Crisis, a charity for the homeless. However, after acquiring critical acclaim, the show was moved to a location where the writer once lived, the contemporary Kilburn. Mike Bartlett is a multiple award-winning playwright and Snowflake is one of his latest works. His credits include Wild | Albion | King Charles III | Game | Bull | An Intervention | Chariots of Fire | Medea | Love, Love, Love | Cock | Earthquakes in London | Contractions and My Child | Artefacts. His TV works include The Town | Doctor Foster | Trauma | Press. He has also written various plays for BBC Radio and went on to win the Imision and Writers’ Guild Tinniswood awards. You can expect a more-than-ordinary story that looks at relationships from a different perspective. This play is universal and suggests that everybody is vulnerable and fragile in some way. Snowflake tickets are out and rolling out just as fast; time to make a decision.
The setting of Snowflake
Expect politically rife conversations happening around the table this Christmas season, as Snowflake tries to establish a bridge between the generational division encircling a father and daughter. Clare Lizzimore’s sharply detailed direction creates a delicate bond between Andy and Natalie. The initial cup of tea that is reluctantly accepted goes on to become a sign of trust. All these take place in a beautiful set created by Jeremy Herbert using a black box shape. You will be transported to a draughty church hall, which Andy has specially decorated for the occasion and his expected guest. The simple yet artistic use of fairy lights offers a mesmerising theatrical feeling so many films lack. With Snowflake tickets, you will enter an emotional ark that will leave you speechless.
The story
Andy is excited and waiting at the Oxfordshire village hall to welcome Maya back on Christmas Eve. He is 43 and enjoys nostalgic television programmes. Maya is his 21-year-old estranged daughter, who left him three years ago after the death of her mother and hasn’t spoken to him ever since. Andy has been heart-broken since that day and the happy thought of seeing his long lost daughter knows no bounds. You will learn about his misery from the monologues presented in the first part. Andy describes himself to June and Terry as a person who is unable to let go of the past.
His long-held social and political beliefs are questioned when a 24-year-old young lady named Natalie makes her appearance. The stakes are greatly raised as two different worlds clash. Will two generations come to terms with how they perceive the world, that too, during such troubled times?
Snowflake serves as proof of Bartlett’s skill as a writer of plays, as you will notice that both sides of the debate are given similar value, leaving no room for stereotypes. Buy Snowflake tickets to explore these ideas as the show attempts to reach a suitable conclusion.