On 1 December at 7:00 PM, we invite you to a meeting with Mark Ravenhill – British playwright, director, and actor; a leading representative of the “in-yer-face theatre” movement, and the author of plays such as Shopping and Fucking, Faust Is Dead, Handbag, The Cut, and Poloroid Stories.
Bodies of Resistance: Queerness, Illness and Hope in Theatre
When thinking about the transformations of contemporary British theatre, it is impossible to overlook the contribution made by Mark Ravenhill. Debuting in 1996, the playwright quickly became a symbol of provocation and courage in diagnosing social tensions and anxieties. His dark, brutal, and indecently humorous plays, though stripped of metaphysics, resembled contemporary parables in which illness, suffering, and loneliness shape the actions of young protagonists. The experience of illness and queerness intertwines with questions of the agency of the wounded body and the resistance it can put up against the blows dealt by reality. The “terror and rage” poured onto the page became a testament to the struggle for selfhood and a universal inquiry into the survival of society.
Shopping and Fucking was staged by The Out of Joint at the Royal Court / Theatre Upstairs on 26 September 1996. In 1999, the play was produced by the Towarzystwo Teatralne at the Rozmaitości Theatre in Warsaw, sparking a wave of “new brutalism” in Poland and thus becoming part of the revolution in European playwriting and the history of transformational change in our country. Ravenhill’s work quickly became an expression of a generational experience, extending beyond mere moral provocation or social critique.
1st of December is the World AIDS Day. Bodies of Resistance: Queerness, Illness and Hope in Theatre is the title of the event opening a broader discussion about theatrical and cultural representations of people affected by illness, strategies of resisting social stigma, and the collective search for hope. The meeting with Mark Ravenhill will be accompanied by a screening of the performance Angels in Warsaw by Julia Holewińska, directed by Wojciech Faruga, which is both formally and thematically closely related to Ravenhill’s work and the themes he explores.
Host: Dorota Sosnowska
Polish translation: Artur Zapałowski
The event is organised in partnership with the British Council.
Horyzonty 23 | On the Margins | Mark Ravenhill is supported by the British Council as part of the UK/Poland Season 2025.