Mischievous and Meaningful

Bardians of the Galaxy, the Royal Shakespeare Company, welcomes Mischief Festival back to Stratford-Upon-Avon, May 31 to June 23. Mischief, for the uninitiated, puts the spotlight on the nation's most exciting rising stars and takes place at the RSC's The Other Place — which is sort of like Glastonbury's Other Stage: cooler, edgier content than, say, the more mainstream Swan Theatre. Less Coldplay, more Stormzy. The month-long hullabaloo will feature two new plays exploring global questions of truth, corruption and freedom; #WeAreArrested andDay of the Living. #WeAreArrested is the true story of journalist Can Dündar’s book, which documents his enthralling account of receiving a critical piece of evidence confirming the illegal shipment of weapons to Syria by the Turkish government, his newspaper's decision to publish that evidence, and his subsequent imprisonment. If you have a belief in the freedom of the Fourth Estate (so that's pretty much everyone in the western world, right?) then this is for you. Day of the Living, meanwhile, is inspired by the events in Ayotzinapa, Mexico 2014 when 43 students were forcibly taken and disappeared. An anarchic, musical tribute to life and the Mexican spirit with urgent, global issues at its heart. Big thinking stuff that, with hindsight, deserved a rather more serious intro than the first four words of this preview. More