The Talk

Too much, too little, or just right? What do you wish you’d been taught (or, not taught) about sex and relationships? Playwright Neela Doležalová asked friends and strangers these questions, and they shared their memories and stories. Created from interviews with almost 100 people, The Talk is a headphone verbatim play about the subversive history of sex education in England.

From parents and teachers, inquisitive 11-year-olds and angry 15-year-olds, doctors and former education secretaries (including Ed Balls and Nicky Morgan), Neela listened to people from their teens to their nineties. These very personal interviews form the content for a 60-minute rollercoaster that will make you laugh, wince, cry, and hopefully ‘talk more about all things sex ed.’.

Headphone verbatim theatre is an intimate storytelling method, allowing the audience to enter into other people’s worlds. The interviews have been edited to capture the essence of each voice and the actors perform whilst listening to the recorded material through headphones. This technique allows every breath and idiosyncratic detail of the speaker to be captured by the performer.

Yes, this is political theatre, because sex is political.