Time Critical plots Stan’s Cafe’s history as it intersects with global news, at the scale of two minutes per year. Each revival extends the show and already 2026 has thrown up two candidates for inclusion.

The day Iran was attacked and started retaliating was one of existential fear and physical peril for millions at the epicentre of the action. For Stan’s Cafe it was the day it became clear that our plan to fly to Adelaide, via Dubai Airport, to perform Of All The People In All The World was not going to fly. It prompted a hastily improvised emergency version of the show led by the one member of our team already in Australia.

I stayed up through a succession of nights supporting Carys via WhatsApp and her team of local performers as they performed the show at WOMADilade. One of the statistics measured out in rice was the population of Tehran. At one point in the performance a woman sat cross-legged taking individual grains off the big pile and using them to create a smaller pile, when quizzed about this she explained that these grains were all her family and friends currently living in the city under attack. Other audience members started gathering around as she told stories of her homeland, it all got very emotional.

Fast forward just a few days and here we are in Canterbury, performing the same show at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre on the campus of Kent University, where, just last week, TV crews were filming students queuing to be inoculated after an outbreak of meningitis in the city. Audience numbers aren’t what they otherwise might be.

If things carry on like this we may just start developing a Jonah Complex.

This is how it should be. You rock up to your local arts venue – in this case MAC. You see a thoughtful show with strong performances, some geat movement and glints of humour – in this case Alterd Skin’s When We See Each Other. Afterwards you go to the venue’s bar, which is still open and order some drinks – in this case lovely cool crisp larger. Then, with some mates, whilst drinking your drink, you critique the show. During the critique some more mates and aquaintances wander in and the critique widens out to a discussion of politics and – in this case, jokes about noise cancelling headphones effectively cancelling your friend’s droning on. Then, even later, after second drinks have been mostly drunk, one of the artists turns up and says ‘hello’ and you discuss the show and state of theatre with them. Finally, you cycle home, in the sweet night air, reflecting on what a ‘good night out’ that was, and how nights like that were once regular, and if circumstances contrived again to allow it, you’d love them to become regular again.

Photo Credit: Graeme Braidwood

The contract will be broken into phases:

Phase 1: Rehearsal between 9th – 15th April 2026 with a performance on 16th April

Phase 2: Rehearsal 19th Oct – 1st Nov 2026 with a performance on 2nd November 

Phase 3: Vertical recording of the Sketches for social media TBC

We are looking for people who are:

• a strong actor
• good with comedy
• precise with text
• confident with devising
• Playing age 12 – 18 

This is a paid opportunity – three weeks of work at £709.00 a week.

Please send a CV making clear your experience and a short paragraph explaining why you would like to audition to casting@stanscafe.co.uk.

Deadline for applications: 12pm, Sunday 15th March.

Auditions w/c 16th March.

Non-gender specific. Open to all who fit the playing age. Everyone is welcome. 

Any questions, please email Rebecca Rochelle via creativelearning@stanscafe.co.uk.

Last year one of my favourite podcasts, 99% Invisible, convened a book club encouraging listeners to read The Powerbroker, Robert Caro’s riveting 1,200 page long biography of urban planner Robert Moses. Through extraordinary manoeuvring he amassed huge power in New York and used this build an insane number of roads, bridges, dams, parks and playgrounds plus the Lincoln Center, the United Nations HQ etc and on. He was a total nightmare in many ways and one of the very few people who got the better of him was Joseph Papp.

Now, Joe Papp crossed swords with Moses in the sixties as he fought to establish free Shakespeare festival in Central Park, but we know about him because he established The Public Theatre on Lafyette St. where we performed The Cardinals back in 2015 (its music venue is called Joe’s Pub).

So now I’m reading Pap’s biography and it’s seriously inspiring. He was from a poor Jewish immigrant family. He fell in love with theatre and was determined to make things happen. He pioneered integrated casting and hustled the Free Shakespeare Festival into existence (it’s still going 60 years later). He raised the money to save New York’s first public library from demolition and convert it into a theatre. The Public Theatre as been a home for radical off-broadway shows ever since (as well as hosting Stan’s Cafe within the legendary Under The Radar Festival it was notably also home to the premiere of Hamilton).

The Public’s acute social conscience is evident in their responses in moments of great public such as the Covid Pandemic, Black Lives Matter and local flooding. Now I notice that on Saturday they are hosting A protest for humanity: The People’s Filibuster.

And so we come back to Robert Caro. Inspired by The Powerbroker I’m now half of a two person book club with my Sister-In-Law, ‘American’ Karen. We are three volumes into Caro’s other book, a ludicrously brilliant and absurdly long biography of Lyndon Johnson. We’ve just been learning about how, for decades, southern senators used the filibuster to prevent civil rights reform. Reading an account of Strom Thurmond’s 24 hour solo filibuster in 1957, I had started to wonder about a context in which this performance form might be used to interesting ends – The Public Theatre are already there.

I hope this is a big success for them. If I was in the big apple I’d be right there with them all power to The Public.

Update – it happened

While performing Of All The People In All The World at the Kennedy Center in 2023 some enthusiastic audience members introduced themselves as employees of The Gates Foundation. We discussed how the show works and how we adapt it to themes. They left a business card and left.

The following year a conversation started about how the foundation and Stan’s Cafe could collaborate. Initially there were discussions about an extended performance at The Discovery Center, which is a science museum / education center showcasing some of the foundation’s work. Later focus shifted to a partnership with the foundation’s Gender Equality team.

Since then we have spent a considerable time discussing what data would make the most persuasive case that “investing in gender equality is not only the right thing to do but the smart thing to do”. Finally we have a set of numbers, a design for their layout and a mini, pop-up show opening here in Seattle. Its does-what-it-says-on-the-tin title is Of All The People In All The World: Investing In Women Benefits Everyone..

Smaller than normal versions of the show, more tightly focused and more didactic, this version also features a couple of innovations. In order to clearly show returns on investment we cleverly use money to represent money, alongside rice representing people – for fans of the show this may sound like sacrilage, but it works well. Also, we have three minute long scripted performance, Of All The Children Born This Hour, which resembles to a table top magic show. A question for Stan Trivia fans: “This show is approximately 33% shorter than the previous shortest Stan’s Cafe show. What is that show? Click here for the answer.

The show is in The Discovery Center. It is open to the public Friday and Saturday 12th & 13th of December then Friday and Saturday 19th and 20th. Our intention is then for it to go on the road, taking its Gender Equality message to places where powerful decision makers gather.

Back in July I got an email from Kalman at Pound Road Productions. A change of dates had put them into trouble with rehearsal space, could we help? As it turned out we could, a little, so Kalman and the team came and rehearsed some of their show The Good Landlord at Our Facility and we chatted a bit about the fun and the challenges of making new theatre and trying to get it somewhere people can see it.

As a result I was really excited to see The Good Landlord. at Thimble Mill Library tonight, fresh from its run at the Omnibus Theatre in London, via The Old Joint Stock. There was a great audience and though the sightlines and lighting weren’t the best – what with it being a library and all – it was a great evening.

The play is written by Kalman and his brother Ethan to draw attention to the iniquities of the housing retal market, which suggests it might well be preachy or didactic but it’s not, it’s funny, distincitive and a bit twisted. Jack is going to be evicted from his terrible flat in fourteen days if he doesn’t pay the rent he owes. Against his wishes his resourceful friend Sean sub-lets the flat’s cupboard to an apparently gullable young woman called Sony and things lurch down hill from there.

I thought it was great. Events unfold in a satisfying and unpredictable way. The writing is deadpan, mostly pacy and occasionally enjoyably sweary. The strong cast fully commit to their off kilter characters and their equivocal relationships. Somehow we like all the characters, whilst they are all also reprehensible. All this, added to the fact the whole thing is set in a single scummy room means the whole production carries pleasing echoes of The Young Ones – in fact it’s possible to imagine The Good Landlord working as well on TV as it does on this stage, which is an unusual, but useful quality.

The programme promotes ACORN the community based union of working class people – tenants, workers and residents who partnered on the play. So there’s a mini plug for them there, check them out.

Nice one Pound Road Productions – I hope this gets a revival and some more action and I look forward to catching up with whatever’s next. You know where we are.

James

15 years ago I shared my admiration for the work of Hetain Patel, which I had encountered for the first time. Since
then I have been vaguely following him from afar as more and and more people had joined the Hetain Patel admiration club. Tonight, for the first time, I saw him in action in person.

Mathroo Basha was presented by Fabric at the Patrick Centre. It’s a solo dance piece performed by Hetain on a circular carpet he made himself reproducing the pattern of the carpet from his grandparent’s house. The soundtrack layers recording of interviews Hetain has conducted with women in his family with music. The choreography entwines with / embodies the text. It’s all very lovely and thoughtful, beautifully lit and executed. It’s gentle and mesmeric and serious but with moments of lightnes and levity.

Under questioning from the audience after the show Hetain shared insight into his rational and processes. It all clear and open and humane. The audience mirrored his considered reflection and generosity. It was a lovely evening.

I’m even more of an admirer than I was before. Do check out his website it’s full of delightful, playful, warm pieces of video, performance and visual art.

We believe Sister Dora should be as famous as Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. So, over the next 18 months, we will be working with two hundred and forty 9 & 10 year olds from across Walsall, to write and publish a new illustrated biography of this extraordinary and exemplary pioneer.

Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. Sharing Sister Dora is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £103,000. Thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to ensure Sister Dora’s story is remembered with pride once more.