LORENZO IS A LIFE-AFFIRMING STORY ABOUT DEATH THAT HAS BEEN LEAVING EDINBURGH AUDIENCES SPELLBOUND

Edinburgh hit and Fringe First winning, Ben Target: LORENZO is transferring to Soho Theatre this autumn. In 2020, Target (Leicester Mercury Comedian Of The Year; Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee; Amused Moose Best Show Comedy Award winner) gave up his creative work to become a live-in carer for Lorenzo. Lorenzo was an irascible prankster and architect, who lived and worked in London for over forty years. Discover their adventures at the end of Lorenzo’s life in this beautiful and wise (Time Out) story, produced by Soho Theatre and directed by Adam Brace (Age is a Feeling; Liz Kingsman: One Woman Show; Alex Edelman: Just for Us).

Multi-award-winning comedian and performance artist Ben Target comments, To return to the Fringe after a five-year absence in which I thought I’d never be able to make a show again and to have it so warmly embraced by audiences and critics feels like magic, but the good kind of magic, not the stuff magicians do.

I share the Fringe First award with the late, great Director, Adam Brace, who nurtured this show and so many others. He’s still here in the stories we share and long may we share them. I am so excited to have the show return to Soho Theatre and a massive thank you to the entire Soho Theatre family and all the glorious creatives who’ve been a part of this journey and for giving this show wings.

Target has a history of working in care, from being a teacher of secondary school students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities to volunteering at the Highgate Mental Health Centre, where he taught stand-up comedy to residents of the schizophrenia care wards during the COVID-19 lockdowns. He has worked in elderly care over many years, from volunteering as a teenager to co-founding the social arts initiative The Care Home Tour in 2017, taking stand-up shows into care homes for the elderly to perform to people living with dementia.

As a former Inclusivity Designer, Target was shortlisted for an RCA award for systems engineering a proposed euthanasia service for the NHS palliative care units. In exploring the best way in which to care when life nears death, LORENZO touches upon the right to die concept and proposes that sometimes the ultimate act of care would be to allow the voluntary ending of life, facilitating this responsibly and painlessly.

BEN TARGET: LORENZO

Venue

Soho Theatre
Upstairs
21 Dean Street
London W1D 3NE

Performance Dates

Wednesday 27th September – Saturday 14th October 2023

Running Time

65 minutes

Box Office

https://sohotheatre.com/events/

Ticket Prices

From £13

Age Guidance

14+

Additional Info

Adam Brace and Ben Target had been working closely together to develop this show since autumn 2022. Adam Brace died in April 2023, but LORENZO has been completed and staged based on their shared vision.

CREATIVES

Writer / Performer: Ben Target
Director: Adam Brace and Lee Griffiths
Producer: Soho Theatre

Set Design: Tom Hartshorne for Morice Designs
Lighting Design: Robert Wells
Creative Consultant: Letty Butler
Choreographer: Chelsey Wiesz

Photo Credit: Ed Moore