It's the early hours of the morning and Danny's the last straggler at Laura's party. Her flat's in a mess. And so are they. One more drink? This tender and funny 2017 play takes an intimate look at the first fragile moments of risking your heart and taking a chance.

A play about how authoritarianism weaponises nostalgia, about Russia today, a psychological thriller located in the ex-Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden, Svalbard. Set in 1999, at the dawn of the Putin autocracy, Pyramiden’s caretakers play out a generational and ideological conflict. Sasha is nostalgic for the collapsed communist past, Slava wants a better future. Their epic struggle rages like the storms of the Polar Night.

We will have the opportunity to meet the playwright and discuss the play with him. An evening not to be missed! Vernon Heathrow is an embittered right-wing academic, about to launch his final book before he finally retires from his post at university. However, when one of his PhD students and social media savvy, Anita Pendharkar, accidentally walks into his book launch, he sees an opportunity to benefit both their futures. Vernon presents an agreement that will allow Anita to realise her dream of a career in academia, while Vernon receives his five minutes of fame as a social media sensation. As Anita agrees we see how their contrasting ideologies affect their relationship to collaborate and how social media success can easily go badly wrong. The Contrarian is the debut play from historian Richard Toye. It explores social media, the culture wars, loneliness, and the emotional backdrop behind ideological arguments.

When four lost New Englanders who enroll in Marty’s six-week-long community-center drama class begin to experiment with harmless games, hearts are quietly torn apart, and tiny wars of epic proportions are waged and won. A beautifully crafted diorama, a petri dish in which we see, with hilarious detail and clarity, the antic sadness of a motley quintet.