"We will give voice to the concerns of the hour! We will question the powers that be! We will make things better! We will make things better! This is a town hall meeting and a radio broadcast, a public protest and the news of your world. In these times of crisis we make a collective ministry with you, our society of friends.

Possessed by the spirits of corporate fat cats, cabinet ministers and media tycoons, we invoke the demons of the day, in order to banish them forever. Frothing at the mouth, we dance it out, rock out and rage on your behalf. Each show will draw on the day’s news and will be about whatever matters to you; in it we’ll be whoever you want us to be. We’ll speak the unspeakable and do the unthinkable for you."

In Make Better Please you, the audience, are invited to sit with the company and read the day’s newspapers over tea and biscuits. The show then responds to the stories which have most significance to the people in the room that day. 

Make Better Please is a response to our times and draws on the public’s – especially young people’s – renewed engagement with politics. The performers respond to the audience’s fears and concerns representing them through figures from the news so that they can then symbolically chase them from the room. They then turn to stories of hope and joy, returning the audience to the world feeling uplifted. 

It’s a rare opportunity for people to come together as a temporary community and talk through the stories that matter to them, engage with current affairs and share ideas, all building into a theatrical crescendo to entertain and inspire.

Recommended for ages 14+

Commissioned and developed by Theatre Bristol, Bristol Old Vic and BAC. Funded by Arts Council England. Developed with the support of Beaford Arts.

Photo: Ben Dowden