The play is set in the 1940s when a German PoW (Smitty) discovers that his pig farm has been taken over by gangsters. The voices in Smitty's head tell him to kill the new owners.

Gary starred alongside the playwright Snoo Wilson (with whom Gary worked with in providing the music and lyrics to Bedbug: The Musical) and Paul Freeman who starred in the original 1971 production of Pignight at the Portable theatre, directed by Snoo Wilson.

Reviews

"Cue a daring production at once screamingly funny and utterly disturbing - which is no less than the tale of a schizoid German prisoner of war, tormented by porcine voices in his head, deserves. Boasting both physical theatre and quick-fire naturalistic dialogue, this satire on the cruelty of factory farming is as timely as ever. As a mental patient, a gangster and his tart vie for control of a Yorkshire pig farm, a gifted cast switch with obvious relish from talking pigs to cruel farmers. It is fortunate that these wry insights are so clearly to Banks' taste. Piling visual joke upon visual joke, he makes a spectacle of his cast and a great show of Wilson's script." - Helena Thompson (The Stage Online)

"Anthony Banks's fast-moving 60-minute production (rewrites have shaved 30 minutes off the original) sustains Wilson's firework display beautifully. Wilson, naturally, knows how to wring the best out of his own dialogue, and Kemp plays Smitty with an affecting bewilderment. Paul Freeman (reprising his roles from the original production) is hilarious dragged up as Jasmine. But the key to the success of such a revival is its continued relevance. And although Pignight is a wee bit dated, its theme - the dangerously unscrupulous practice of factory farming - is as Millennial an issue as they come. The new company Cactus Productions has set out its stall to revive works of interest once considered ahead of their time but now fallen out of the repertoire. It's a bold move: their success is very much out of the company's hands, in that it can stand only in a climate where new writing that is, in its turn, ahead of these times has room to flourish. It has, however, done well to give us another look at this dynamic ideas play, and in such a good production, too. Wilson once wrote that he'd often considered restaging Pignight when "in his cups". Perhaps Cactus could buy him a pint and talk about Darwin's Flood." - Adam Scott (The Independent, May 7, 2004)

"I wish the play’s argument came across as vividly [as the set design]. The confident performances hint at the cast’s belief it is doing so, not only Wilson’s two surly workers but Paul Freeman in a blonde wig as his women, the first genteel, the second camply coarse. And more haunting than these is the Smitty of Gary Kemp (Ronnie in The Krays), forlorn, frowning, listening to other voices from other worlds. But if Wilson intends a connection between atrocities in war and in the piggery he does not articulate it; some plotlines peter out, others barely peter in. His plays always beat a quirky path but the short cuts here make the play too shadowy to follow." - Jeremy Kingston (The Times, May 6, 2004)

Quotes

Links

Pignight - Official site

Official Gary Kemp Site - Pignight Report (includes images, visitors comments and reviews of the play)

Images

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Press Stills

Pignight

Facts

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Reviews

Quotes

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Images

Press Stills