In Tents And Purposes

In Tents and Purposes premiered at the Lyric Hammersmith on 22nd January 2016, as part of the Evolution scheme, before transferring to the VAULT Festival from 10th - 14th February. The show then ran from 4th to 29th August at Assembly, George Sq, Studio 4 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Ten years. Two friends. One fortune teller. Roxy Dunn (Channel 4 Babylon, BBC Three Top Coppers) and Alys Metcalf (The Play That Goes Wrong, west end) compete with their egos to tell a comic, time-hopping story, exploring whether our lives are predetermined or shaped by our choices.

It's August 2010 and newly graduated best friends, Sam and Libby, are letting their hair down at a music festival before they embark on the rest of their lives. In between the naked dancing and the fake funerals, they fit in a visit to a fortune-teller, who predicts career success and true love for Sam – and for Libby, a life of poverty and loneliness.

Following them through the next decade, we see Sam become an international success as a chef and marry the love of her life, while Libby languishes alone in a rented flat with her as yet-unfinished novel. At the mid-point of the show they flashback to the festival where they’re given the reversed fortunes and we see their lives play out a second time around, ultimately asking how much we make our own luck and to what extent who we are determines what our fate will be.