OffWestEnd Announces 100th OnComm For THE POLTERGEIST Streamed Live From Southwark Playhouse

Many independent, alternative and fringe theatre venues and companies responded to the challenges of the Covid pandemic by taking their shows online. OffWestEnd responded to this whole new strand of theatre by launching the OnComm award for the best of this new online theatre.

OffWestEnd has announced its 100th OnComm award to the production The Poltergeist by Philip Ridley, starring Joseph Potter and directed by Wiebke Green. Presented by Tramp and streamed live from Southwark Playhouse in November, The Poltergeist is a darkly comic new play about art, family, memory, and being haunted by the life we never lived.

Jack Silver, Artistic Director of Tramp, said: 'This OnComm Award means so much to us as a team - and I'm especially pleased for Joe (Joseph Potter) and Wiebs (Wiebke Green). Everyone knows Philip is a genius - and I don't use that world lightly - but to have such an incredible director and a phenomenal firecracker of an actor as well is just so exciting.

Joe was in our Beast of Blue Yonder cast, and when lockdown happened; he lost three jobs in one day (he was also working in a bar and an airport). So to be back in a theatre 7 months later with five and even six star reviews and now an OnComm... I feel delighted for him. Everyone who's seen him thinks he's at the start of a stellar career and all the reviews have lavished praise on his "tour-de-force" performance. Wiebs has worked relentlessly since the start of lockdown with Philip, firstly crafting the fifteen The Beast Will Rise monologues, and now directing The Poltergeist, and she deserves all the praise she's getting. I'm so excited to be able to work with an amazing female director early in her career.

The Poltergeist is definitive Ridley: original, thought provoking, relentless, breath-taking, and crackling with his unique imagery and dazzling verbal pyrotechnics, I'm just so proud we did it justice.'

Other recent OnComms have been awarded to shows from a wide range of venues & companies from across the UK, including People Show, Stan's Café, Yellow Earth, Hope Mill Theatre, Original Theatre and Chickenshed.

A full list of all OnComm awards can be found at www.offies.london/oncomm.

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