Director Patrick Sandford Performs his Solo Show GROOMED at Soho Theatre

It is unusual for a director to become a performer. Patrick Sandford does so at the age of 65 to perform his solo show GROOMED, a play that was 50 years in the writing.

Combining three gripping narratives, a Japanese soldier who refuses to stand down, the inventor of the saxophone and the personal story of a betrayed schoolboy, GROOMED pushes past sensationalist celebrity headlines, and shows the lasting impact of abuse into adulthood.

Patrick is an award-winning director who spent 25 years as Artistic Director of The Nuffield Theatre, Southampton. Previous work at the Soho Theatre includes Smallholding by Chris Dunkley (Nom. Best Director Off West End Awards 2013).
As the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse takes evidence GROOMED is a public testimony. The play needed to be written; it almost wrote itself.

Over the years Patrick has integrated his past - but the work of recovery is never complete. There are no easy answers. Rather the complicated questions persist: Why didn't I say anything? Was I complicit? Why did nobody notice? What if they don't believe me? What if it's true that the abused becomes the abuser, like vampires? What did that man think he was doing?

Directed by Nancy Meckler, best known as joint artistic director of Shared Experience, after 22 years at the helm Nancy has now returned to freelance directing, She is associate director of Hampstead Theatre and this year directs King Lear at The Globe.
Patrick is joined on stage a virtuoso saxophonist, playing a score composed by Simon Slater, who has composed theatre scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Liverpool Everyman, Bristol Old vic and Young Vic. He is also an in-demand actor performing in Mamma Mia for five years as well as Forbidden Broadway (Fortune Theatre), Waiting for Godot and Wind in the Willows (Nuffield Southhampton).

Can the Theatre be a survival strategy? GROOMED is theatrically fast-moving, buoyant, emotionally profound but not for one moment depressing. There is no hint of agonised self-indulgence - the exploration is rigorous, complex and entirely human. Underpinned by a live saxophonist.

We all suffer trauma and are damaged in our own ways. This story explores how we put ourselves back together.

Ingenious Purpose present

GROOMED
By Patrick Sandford

Directed by Nancy Meckler

Press Night: Thu 15 June, 7.15pm

Tue 13 Jun - Sat 1 Jul

Tue - Sat, 7.15pm; 4pm matinees on Sats and Wed 21 Jun

Tickets from £10

sohotheatre.com / 020 7478 0100

Need more UK Regional Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...