"It wasn’t meant to be like this. I thought they’d be like us. But better than us. Better versions of us.”
A Frantic Assembly and State Theatre Company of South Australia production Co-produced with Warwick Arts Centre in association with Chichester Festival Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith
Digital Theatre captured Andrew Bovell’s Things I Know To Be True, during its sold-out London run at the Lyric Hammersmith. It’s a moving and visceral piece of contemporary theatre, featuring Frantic Assembly’s celebrated physicality.
"DT+ has done some incredible work on Things I Know To Be True and, as a result, I have changed my long held opinion about theatre transferring to film!” - Geordie Brookman, Co-director.
Things I Know To Be True is a complex and intense study of the mechanics of a family that is both poetic and brutally frank. As beautifully touching as it is funny and bold the play tells the story of a family and marriage through the eyes of four grown siblings struggling to define themselves beyond their parents' love and expectations.
Parents Bob and Fran have worked their fingers to the bone and with their four children grown and ready to fly the nest it might be time to relax and enjoy the roses. But the changing seasons bring home some shattering truths.
The play is set in Adelaide, Australia, which is where the play held its World Premiere in May 2016. It subsequently toured the United Kingdom twice.
CAST INCLUDES: Matthew Barker, Natalie Casey, Richard Mylan, Kirsty Oswald, Ewan Stewart and Imogen Stubbs.
A beautiful and painfully perceptive portrait of a family and the frictions that arise when grown-up children try to push beyond the confines of their loving parents’ expectations…genuinely haunting and fervently recommended.
★★★★★
The Independent
‘this beautiful family drama is easily the finest production I have ever seen at the Lyric Hammersmith. Returning after an acclaimed initial run in 2016, this collaboration between Frantic Assembly and the State Theatre Company South Australia is well worth two hours for anyone who loves theatre or, indeed, has been part of a family.’
★★★★★
The Standard
‘Can a parent a love their children too much? Is it unwise to project all aspirations onto their futures? These are the questions which hover troublingly over Things We Know to Be True, a poetic and deeply poignant play from Andrew Bovell, the Australian writer best known for the film Lantana, adapted from his own play Speaking in Tongues, and for co-writing Strictly Ballroom with Baz Luhrmann…highly recommended – an articulate piece of drama about the dangers of unarticulated emotions.’
★★★★
The Telegraph
‘Things I Know To Be True is funny, touching, forthright, modern and somehow both realistic and sentimental. Families. We all have them: they’re not always easy to like or to love.’
★★★★
The Reviews Hub