Exterminating Angel -An Improvisation, Pleasance One, Edinburgh

What/Why:

Following a sold-out UK tour funded by the Arts Council of England, Exterminating Angel – an
improvisation arrives at the Pleasance Courtyard for the Edinburgh Festival 2012.

Described
by scores of audiences as an experience unlike anything they have seen before, Exterminating
Angel – an improvisation is a radical piece of theatre in which the actors invent every line of
dialogue afresh each night.

A group of friends enjoy a smart-casual dinner party together. Light conversation flows in all
directions, until gradually they discover that something is very wrong; none of them are able to
leave the room. Freely inspired by the haunting visions of playwright Maurice Maeterlinck and
filmmaker Luis Bunuel, the play is a cathartic, almost documentary vision of an apathetic
society, exposing how a new generation of young Britons relate to each other and to the world
around them.

Devised and Directed by Jack McNamara
Exterminating Angel is one of those works that I know will influence my future thought and
practice. I am already stealing from it. It is an endlessly thoughtful piece of theatre – sharply
structured and also breathtakingly free.

It plays effortlessly with form, slipping under an
audience’s skin. It is vicious and barbed in its satire, but it is also ingenuous in its formal
experimentation and narrative drive. Above all, it is its own piece of work.
- Tim Crouch