New Luton play comes to The Hat Factory Arts Centre

For two nights only the multi-award-winning Luton based theatre company, Chalk Line, are premiering their new play at The Hat Factory Arts Centre!

The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return aims to explore the beauty of youth against the harshness of the environment. Packed with swagger, it hurls at a rapid pace with linguistic vigour and unfolds in real time set to a backdrop of noughties bangers. It’s a tapestry of restlessness, violence on the streets, austerity in the neighbourhood, while a cracking house party pulses round the corner.

Writer Sam Edmunds grew up in Luton and draws on his personal experiences as well as extensive conversations with young people and those who have been directly affected by the threat or consequences of knife violence. The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return tells an epic working class story about impoverished young people fighting against an environment that aims to repress them. Through this, it explores how easily they can be drawn into violence and how anger, if left misdirected and uncontrolled, can lead to catastrophic events. It shines a light on the challenging circumstances that can so often stem from growing up in low socio-economic areas.

Sam Edmunds comments: I wanted to write a play to deal with the enormity and epic-ness of what it means to grow up in an impoverished community surrounded by violence. This play is ultimately a reflection of my upbringing in Luton, but also about the towns history and people. It wants to celebrate them as well as highlight the realities they live in. I was inspired to write a story which speaks to the restlessness of the working classes who are constantly repressed by our government, how easily young people can be pulled into violence and how we become a product of an environment built to suffocate us. The play tells us that things need to change, and I desperately want them to.

Chalk Line were winners of the prestigious 2022 Untapped Award presenting Blanket Ban with Underbelly and The New Diorama Theatre. This is their next show aiming to achieve the same critical acclaim.

This show is supported by intervention work with Beds Veru in the Bedfordshire Police. It is also supported by Next Generation Youth Theatre, The Hat Factory Arts Centre, Arts Council England, The Unity Theatre Trust, The Peggy Ramsay Foundation and Revoluton Arts.