A PHYSICAL and absurd comedy featuring coffins, inspectors and toy lorries, Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! is performed by Swindon’s newly created Darkroom Theatre Company this month.

Artistic director of the new company is Olly Webb who says the play is set in 1974, when inflation has reached an all-time high, the police are fascists and the Government doesn’t care about the people, so action must be taken.

The drama, written by Dario Fo, has a plot based around Antonia, loving wife to Giovanni the Communist, and her friend Margherita, equally loving wife to Luigi the Communist. Having started a riot in the local supermarket and liberating groceries, they frantically try to hide the goods. But with police sniffing around, the Pope breathing down their necks, and their less than understanding husbands wreaking havoc, only a miracle can save them in this frenetic farce.

Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! takes place from Friday, December 15 to Saturday, Deember 16 at 7.30pm in the Shoebox Theatre, Theatre Square, Swindon.

Tickets are £10 from https://www.shoeboxtheatre.org.uk/whatson

Also coming up at Shoebox Theatre are practical courses for actors. The first is a Level 2 course for those who have had previous theatre training. It runs from January 23 2018 at 7.30pm.

The course is based on experimental theatre theories by Antonin Artaud, entitled Theatre and Immediacy - An exploration of experimental performance. The course is for over 18s and costs £135 for the 10-week course including exam.

The second course begins a day later on Wednesday, January 24 for 10 weeks from 7pm and is an Equity recognised qualification course in Theatrical Broadsword stage combat taken by APC Teacher and RSC Associate Practitioner Tom Jordan.

On Thursday, January 25 2018 there is an acting course for beginners over 18 years. The course is for those with little or no acting experience who want to explore acting techniques. The course begins with storytelling and learning how to create imaginative characters. The course runs every week from 7.30pm until March 29. To book a place on any of the courses visit shoeboxtheatre.org.uk/actingcourses.