Boogie on the Bones at Cockpit Theatre

Inspired by real events and brought to life by the Slavic theatre collective WITHINTHEATRE who are made up of artists with lived experience of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Boogie on the Bones is a powerful story of love, music, and the price of freedom in post-Stalinist Russia. In 1955 Moscow, a new underground movement the Stilyagi bursts into life full of post-war young rebels who refused to identify with the overbearing greyness that surrounded them. Daring to wear bright jackets, bold hairstyles and dance to American jazz, they invented their own defiant style. Amongst them is medical student Bob who smuggles Western music into the country by carving grooves into X-ray films, charismatic Fred who is hiding a devastating secret, the mysterious Polly and a loyal officer from the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League the Komsomol Mel, who finds his world turned upside down when he falls for Polly during a police raid. But as the authorities tighten their grip, their friends disappear and the fantasy of the West starts to fade, these young dreamers discover that sometimes the only way to stay human under tyranny is to put on a bright tie, strike up the band and let the music play. Boogie on the Bones is a powerful and relevant reminder that in the darkest of times, art becomes rebellion and every song an act of fierce defiance in the battle to be heard.