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
✭✭✭✭ 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
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.