HIGH VALUE MAN Comes to the Big House

High Value Man is a modern morality tale about the pressures on young men, written by Igor Memic and performed by the young company of The Big House's Open House Project.

When call centre worker Marcus loses the only job he's ever had, he's shocked; after all, he's a hit with everyone he speaks to. Suddenly finding he has a lot of time on his hands, he gets caught in the snare of Manny – an alluring influencer promising wealth, power and control. Manny's mission soothes Marcus' feelings of emasculation and he sees a way of turning around his financial situation. But as Marcus falls deeper into Manny's world, he and his partner Ella start to discover the true cost of becoming a High Value Man.

High Value Man is the latest work for stage from award-winning writer Igor Memic, whose debut play Old Bridge premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2021 as the winner of the Papatango Prize, and went on to win the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre, the Critics' Circle Award and the Offie for Most Promising Playwright. The creative team will be led by The Big House's Associate Director, Christopher Neels, and will include movement director Kwami Odoom (The PappyShow), sound designer Hugh Sheehan (A Woman Walks Into A Bank, Theatre503), and video designer Matt Powell (The Elixir of Love, ENO).

High Value Man will be presented as a work in development at The Big House's north London home. The company will be made up of the 15 members of this season's Open House Project.

Director Christopher Neels said, “I am very excited at the prospect of taking on High Value Man with this group. Not only will this production have the raw talent and infectious energy of a Big House production, it will also add to the important conversation around the rise of toxic masculinity and its effect on society.”

The Big House is a charity transforming the lives of care leavers and at-risk young people through the power of performance. They are committed to providing a secure environment where members are enabled to lead positive, independent and fulfilling lives. Their artistic work is co-created, exploring collective experience whilst safeguarding individual stories. The Big House collaborates with creative industry professionals who are excited by their highly disciplined work and inspirational membership, to help them create work of the highest standards and lead the way to a more diverse arts sector.

The Open House Project is an opportunity to explore the world of a story in a safe environment, giving the members and professional creatives space and time to experiment with ideas that can be developed further in any media. It's a chance to welcome audiences into the conversation, to actively solicit their feedback and to ask them to invest in the next stage of the story. To allow the Open House Project to be a safe space for play, critics will not be invited to review at this stage in the work's development.

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