Photo Flash: Jonny Woo and Alexis Gregory Star in SEX / CRIME

In a fractured and divided city, two men meet to recreate the killings of a famous gay serial killer - for their own pleasure...and the right price.

"Everything else is tumbling down
Falling apart
But not you and me
You and me are going to hold tight
You and me are just right"

Sex/Crime, written for The Glory, a Queer and alternative East End nightlife spot and performance mecca, and funded by Arts Council England, is a challenging new play that explores sex, violence, language, fear and queerness.

Sex/Crime stars celebrated performance artist Jonny Woo and acclaimed playwright Alexis Gregory (SLAP and SAFE) who also wrote it.

Sex/Crime, directed by Robert Chevara, will play at The Glory, 281 Kingsland Road, London E2 8AS, from Monday April 9 - Saturday 28April

A series of post-show Q&A's, talks and events exploring Sex/Crime and its themes will run alongside the play.

THE CAST

Jonny Woo

Jonny Woo is one of London's most celebrated alternative cabaret artists. Having cut his teeth back in the early 2000's in New York, he returned home to fashion himself a scene in East London upon which to develop his inimitable performance style. Anarchic and unpredictable. Confrontational and unapologetic. Jonny Woo packs his shows with original songs, stories, tongue twisters and lip-syncs. Unequivocally English, Jonny Woo entertains with an addictive charm and personality. Jonny has been creating work in London for over a decade.

He has been resident at The Soho Theatre, having presented eight shows with them including his infamous Gay Bingo which celebrated 10 years at Hackney Empire last October. He has had work commissioned by The Royal Opera House, The Institute Of Contemporary Arts and The Royal Festival Hall. He has been the host of London music festival Lovebox for five years and heads The Downlow at Glastonbury every year. He has been accredited with kick starting the queer performance scene in East London and recently presented his show, The East London Lecture about local gentrification at The Rose Lipman Building and at Shoreditch Town Hall. He most recently launched his show TRANSFORMER, a rock show based on the music from Lou Reed's album, which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and went on to The Soho Theatre, acted in a radical staging of Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale Heart (The Glory), created and hosted Hackney Empire's The Un-Royal Variety Show (2016 and 2017) and he is currently touring the show Night At The Musicals across Australia and his Brexit - The Musical hits the Edinburgh Festival this year. His own performance pub, The Glory opened December 2014 and in summer 2016 and 2017, The Glory partnered with the National Theatre for a riverside 'takeover' - also created and hosted by Jonny.

Alexis Gregory

Alexis Gregory is a London-based playwright, performer, producer and theatremaker. His plays include his debut; the immersive Slap (Theatre Royal Stratford East / Channel 4 London HQ 'pop-up' performance - the channel's first ever onsite theatrical presentation / 'Concrete' in Shoreditch for The Telegraph's Pride celebrations), with Alexis acting in the piece, directed by Rikki Beadle-Blair MBE, published by Team Angelica, long listed for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize, currently being adapted into a film version; Safe, a verbatim piece on LGBT youth homelessness, directed by Robert Chevara (Soho Theatre - Pride in London Arts Festival / London Theatre Workshop - media partnered with Attitude magazine / Norwich Theatre Royal - directed by Alexis), published by Oberon; and the workshop of Bright Skin Light (Theatre Royal Stratford East) also directed by Robert Chevera. Short plays include And Where There Once Were Two (Arcola Queer Collective / The Bunker), Freak (Bush Theatre) and Orlando, Judy Garland and The Fierce Children of the Light ('In Response to the Orlando Attack' - St James Theatre, Studio). He is a regular guest reader at LGBT literary salon Polari (Southbank Centre / Polari UK tour / various 'pop-up's and festivals) and is is also a judge for the 'Polari First Book Prize'. Upcoming projects include a new solo verbatim piece on queer activism through the ages, Riot Act premiering Summer 2018, which has already had sections performed at Polari (Southbank Centre and UK tour) and at Leicester Square Theatre ('Made in Ldn' scratch night). As an actor, Alexis's credits include plays with Beadle Blair's Team Angelica company including Bashment (Birmingham Rep), Kick Off (Riverside Studios), Stonewall (Pleasance Theatres London and Edinburgh Festival / The Drill Hall) and several plays with the company at Tristan Bates Theatre with many of the roles being written especially for him. Additional theatre includes First Signs (Kings Head), Sparkleshark ('Write To Play with Phillip Ridley', Southwark Playhouse), Eight (Kings Head / Tara Arts / Tristan Bates), Larry Kramer's A Minor Dark Age (Operating Theatre Company), You Couldn't Make It Up (New End Theatre), workshop productions of Children at Play (Young Vic) and A Thousand Miles of History (High Tide) and performance art piece Gasping Words (ICA) and a recent staged reading of SwanSong (Kings Head, Queer Fest, 2017). Screen credits include several of Team Angelica's features including Bashment, Kick Off and the educational resources Fit and Free, co-produced with Stonewall, with copies offered to every school in the UK and the lead in the short Mankind (2018), Specimen (screened at BFI Flare, 2016), No Ordinary Joe and Road to Damascus. TV credits include Casualty (BBC) and The Bill (ITV).

Robert Chevara (Director)

Robert Chevara is an award-winning theatre and opera director. He was the recipient of a cultural study award from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan, as well as a Churchill Fellowship award. He won the Prudential award for his production of Carmen (Mid Wales Opera) and Best Contemporary Opera Production for Tom Adès's Powder Her Face (Stockholm). His production of Tennessee Williams's Vieux Carré also won Best Revival of a Play Award 2013 from Front Row Dress. His numerous theatre productions include Williams's early piece The Chorus Girl Plays (World premiere - Tennessee Williams Festival, Provincetown 2013), the world premiere of Lionel Bart's musical Quasimodo (Kings Head Theatre); and The Glass Menagerie (TheatreSpace, London); As You Like It (English Theatre Berlin); Fair!, a play with music, which he devised with young offenders for the National Youth Theatre at Bullwood Hall Prison; Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (Hau Theatre, Berlin); Hotter than Rochester by Paul Doust (Paines Plough); JM Barrie's Mary Rose; Strindberg's Easter and Hamlet (TheatreSpace, London); Eva Peron and The Four Twins, two one-act plays by Copi (BAC). In 2016 he directed the Danish premiere of Mike Bartlett's c*ckand Bull, Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream (Copenhagen Opera Academy) and the world premiere of Alexis Gregory's Bright Skin Light (Theatre Royal Stratford East). He has also worked with Alexis on Safe, a play about LGBT homeless youth, at the Soho Theatre and London Theatre Workshop. Last year his production of Tennessee Williams' In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel starring Linda Marlowe at Charing Cross Theatre was named by The Times as one of the10 best productions of 2017. He is currently directing Philip Ridley's Vincent River at Park Theatre. Future plans include an American tour of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, the German premiere of Gail Louw's controversial play Blond Poison in Berlin and a double bill of Puccini's Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi for the Royal Northern College of Music. His first book was published by Oberon Books in 2015 and he has had several poems published in anthologies in the last year.Critical praise for previous Alexis Gregory productions

Photos by Jane Hobson

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