Current Work

‘’And so it began. The indoctrination….. Indoctrination is a process that works on the subconscious masquerading as education. We felt like our minds were being opened but many might say they were gradually being closed before they had even had a chance to develop. We didn’t see the dark side of it all. Of course we didn’t.”

Learning was the brainchild of Francesca Rose and Seamus Finnegan and started life as a series of semi-autobiographical monologues written by Francesca, about growing up in the 1960s and 1970s as a traditional but only mildly observant Jew who was nevertheless firmly anchored in a faith community.

Morphing into a play script took time, and resulted in the birth of a fictious couple, Debs and Jonathan. Our play joins them as ‘Young Debs and Jonathan’…flirtatious…happy…in love…. But then, they go to meet her family in the shadow of her anxiety about Jonathan’s woeful lack of traditional Jewish education…

Later we join them a couple of decades on…oh the irony…

“I think I might like to be more religious…adopt some of the practices like the others in the learning group. We really should try to keep Shabbat instead of going shopping and watching Netflix.”

Learning was performed on Zoom during the lockdown, and as two abridged, rehearsed readings as part of our community engagement process. We’d like to thank Bruno for loaning his café, Cibo Caffetteria for the rehearsed readings.

Full productions took place at Artsdepot Studio Theatre, London N12 on 16th and 17th November 2024 and we were delighted to have had a 2 week run of Learning at Upstairs at the Gatehouse Theatre, Highgate in February 2025.