Skin in Flames is an award-winning political thriller about a famous photojournalist who returns to the country where his career was launched during a brutal civil war. One of his photographs (of a schoolgirl flying through the air after a bomb explosion) has since become a world-renowned icon of war, violence, and innocence. While the photograph has become a household image, the girl has never been identified. Twenty years later, the photographer returns to the infant’s democracy to receive a prestigious peace award, but first must be interviewed by an ambitious young woman whose story seems eerily familiar.

Skin in Flames 2015 © Andrew H Williams

   Press Quotes  

✭✭✭✭ Critics Choice: Top 10 New Plays in London – BritishTheatre


✭✭✭✭ “A gripping political thriller… everything about directors Silvia Ayguadé and Franko

Figueiredo’s production – the lighting, the music, the staging – combines to create a masterpiece

of suspense that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats from start to finish.” – LondonTheatre1


 ✭✭✭✭ “This is a tough, uneasy but richly rewarding night in the theatre”BritishTheatre


“Directors Silvia Ayguadé and Franko Figueiredo do well in combining drama, betrayal and political

anxiety in this ticking time bomb of a show.”LDNCard


 “Cold and gruelingly suspenseful. It jabs at the audience like a knife in the dark”LDNCard


 “Guillem Clua’s artfully structured thriller… Each narrative unfolds with clarity and purpose, mainly

thanks to a careful staging from directors Silvia Ayguade and Franko Figueiredo and an equally

thoughtful lighting design from Derek Carlyle….The international cast negotiates this complex

structure well… Bea Segura is a commanding, strident presence as the disillusioned reporter with a

hidden agenda, but the real victim of this conflict is embodied in Laya Marti’s tortured, tormented

Ida. Clua pulls off this dual storyline exceptionally well”The Stage


“Bea Segura and Laya Marti shine as Hanna and Ida… Almiro Andrade gives a complex

performance of a man who will do anything to rescue a career that is in its death throes… directors

Silvia Ayguade and Franko Figueiredo wrestle successfully with the complex narrative”Exeunt


 “Guillem Clua’s Skin in Flames is an explosion of power – political and personal…there’s nowhere

else to look, no escape from these inconvenient truths…Marti is brilliant at conveying the

emotional rollercoaster she rides…David Lee-Jones’s egregious Doctor Brown…Clua has achieved

his first objective of making us stop and think.”BroadwayWorld


 “Silvia Ayguadé and Franko Figueiredo’s production smoothly blends the two storylines and Valerie

Kaneko-Lucas’s design provides a setting that signals international style mixed with ethnic

patterns, an untidiness that reflects the national situation and a suggestion of corrugated iron

made elegant to hint at conflict veneered over.”BritishTheatreGuide


“The four actors bring commitment and energy to their parts and Martí and Segura are especially

fervent in their expressions of different kinds of victimisation and survival strategies.”The Arts Desk


“Lee-Jones [is] sinister and lecherous when taking advantage of Martí’s desperate

situation…[Segura’s] central monologues were emotionally electric and charged with suspense,

sorrow and atmosphere. One in particular really took my breath away – two minutes where the

spotlight shined on her (literally) and the music grew and developed to add pace to her speech, all

combined into a colourful picture for the audience to experience.” – A Younger Theatre

   Credits 

Playwright Guillem Clua

Translator J M Saunders

Producers Franko Figueiredo for StoneCrabs and Silvia Ayguadé for Bots&Barrals

Directors Franko Figueiredo & Silvia Ayguadé

Set and Costume Designer Valerie Kaneko-Lucas

Lighting Designer Derek Carlyle

Sound Designer Dinah Mullen

Production Management Ricky McFadden

Cast Almiro Andrade David Lee-Jones Laya Marti and Bea Segura

Assistant Directors Hattie Coupe and Jude Evans

Assistant Producer Jude Evans

Skin in Flames was a co-production between StoneCrabs Theatre Company and Bots & Barrals in association with the Park Theatre. Skin in Flames was supported by The Royal Victoria Hall Foundation, LondonSchool Trust, The John Fernald Award, Istitut Ramon Lull and Catalans UK.