Wesele / Wedding

An immersive one woman show rooted in the European tradition of absurdist political comedy with a Polish-English love story at heart.

It’s the last Polish-English wedding before the Brexit-imposed borders close around the UK, sealing it off from the rest of Europe. The MC invites all the guests to take part in wedding games and Disco Polo singalongs in a bid to keep the international community together. She needs this wedding to go off without a hitch. Will she succeed?

This comic (and at times dark) collage of authentic and fictional migrant stories told by a real-life wedding MC uses stand-up, storytelling and physical theatre modes to subvert Polish and British cultural and gender stereotypes. The show examines and challenges the role of tradition, folklore, national identity, religion and family bonds, and investigates how they shape society’s perceptions of itself and the ‘other.’ Celebratory and uplifting, Wesele / Wedding is also an unexpectedly moving and politically relevant meditation on the dangers of populism and of borders – both physical and mental. Peppered with Polish and Esperanto Wesele / Wedding explores whether popular culture can bring us together.

With an international creative team on board including Director Patrizia Paolini, Esperanto writer Ariel Bonkorpa and academic Dr.Urszula Chowaniec, Wesele / Wedding foregrounds migrant women's perspective in the political, societal and performance making discourse.

Show supported by the Arts Council England.