Pornography

by Simon Stephens

Presented by: tabHu Acting School

Simon Stephens’ Pornography is a haunting mosaic of lives unravelling during the 2005 London bombings. Fragmented, lyrical, and unsettling, it captures ordinary people in extraordinary moments—desire, grief, isolation—woven into a city on edge. It’s not about sex, but exposure: of vulnerability, violence, and the raw pulse beneath urban life.

Set against the backdrop of the 2005 London bombings, Pornography is a fragmented, poetic exploration of a city on edge. Told through seven loosely connected scenes, the play captures ordinary lives—siblings, strangers, lovers—grappling with isolation, desire, and disconnection. There’s no central plot, but a haunting emotional thread: the sense that something has ruptured beneath the surface of everyday life.

Stephens doesn’t offer answers—only moments. A stolen kiss, a racist rant, a quiet breakdown. The title refers not to sex, but to exposure: the raw, unfiltered reality of a society stripped bare by fear, media saturation, and emotional numbness.

“We live in pornographic times.” “Scorched by a need and an inability to connect.” “The suicide bombers were in no way monstrous, or evil, or alien. But rather… deeply human and deeply English.”

“Pornography is a play that dramatises a world that seems to be more atomised and fractured than it has been in the past.”

"We are not here to entertain. We are here to awaken. Theatre must be a mirror, a wound, and a balm." - Paulo Castro (Director)

tabHu Ensemble has previously collaborated with Adelaide Festival, the Migration Museum, the Multicultural Communities Centre of SA, the Migrant Resource Centre, and a range of community-led initiatives across South Australia. This production marks a new chapter in their mission to make theatre that matters.

• $37.90 + $3.30 fee
• 22-23 November 2025
• 80 minutes
• Holden Street Theatres
• The Arch
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  Content warning: sex, violence, discrimination and alcohol references