Breaking Boundaries

This week we welcome an energetic touring production BreakThe Floorboards to the Coliseum. This dance comedy drama is a strikingly original one which comes to us from Rifco Arts in a co-production with Watford Palace Theatre. Rifco Arts are the young company who created the Britain’s Got Bhangra musical which received rave audience reviews when it was here last November.

Break The Floorboards tells the tale of Zain, a teenage Muslim lad who simply wants to dance despite disapproving peer pressure and his two left feet. Rifco Arts specialises in developing high-quality theatre which reflects the contemporary British Asian experience. 

This light-hearted drama explores the complexities of our multi-cultural society whilst also playing on the universality of people reaching for their dreams. The current trend for talent shows like Britain’s Got Talent demonstrates that when it comes to appreciating talent we are all equal and the Break The Floorboards cast have talent in spades.

I think part of popularity of the talent show on television in recent years is our desire to see something unique and willing people on to succeed for having the ability to do something exceptionally good which others cannot do.

Theatre is very much the same but it’s immediate and all happens right before your eyes rather than as a more detached experience via our television screens. Whilst each performer spends years honing their skills each production is crafted in a few short weeks. 

Having a gifted bunch of performers on stage before your eyes doing things that you can’t necessarily do offers us that chance to celebrate the art of performance. Theatre is still as attractive to us as it has ever been because it offers us that sense of escapism in a very immediate form as well as creating a sense of occasion when going to see a show.

It’s a pleasure for me to see audiences participate in a shared sense of enjoyment having stepped through the Coliseum doors for what may be their first or fiftieth time. 

What people do day-to-day may not necessarily be what we want to do for a living, but those moments of celebration in seeing someone succeed and make it big is something we can all relate to. 

It’s my job to make sure that the Coliseum continues to put that talent on stage for you to see and enjoy.

See you at the Coliseum.

Kevin

Artistic Director