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This production is recommended for ages 14+.
Performance Dates
28 July - 8 August 2026
Run time: 1hr 15mins
No interval
Inspired by the shocking true story of the shooting of Tyisha Miller, this electrifying fusion of beatboxing, rap and hip-hop dance reimagines her final living moments.
In 1998, 19-year-old Black woman Tyisha Miller was shot dead by four California police officers while she lay unconscious in a car. In Dreamscape, the violence of her death is juxtaposed with lyrical and joyous remembrance of her life. As each of her twelve bullet wounds is described by a Coroner’s report in cold clinical detail, Tyisha’s life bursts into vivid detail on stage – from the joy of dancing and softball to first kisses and hair styling.
Widely acclaimed for its clear-eyed look at the relationship between race, the body and violence, the show drew rave reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, won a Fringe Theatre Award, and was named one of The Stage’s Best Shows To See and in The Scotsman’s Top 5 Shows. After a critically-acclaimed run in New York and receiving ★★★★★ from The Guardian earlier this year, the show now returns to London.
In 1998 Tyisha Miller, a 19-year-old African-American woman, was lying unconscious in a car at a Californian gas station when she was shot by police officers called to the scene. She was hit by 12 bullets. In Rickerby Hands’ acclaimed poetic Dreamscape, first seen in Edinburgh last summer and now transferring to the Arcola, each of those bullets becomes a memory. It is an effective device in a show which mixes choreography and spoken word to good effect to tell the story of a life cut short. It’s done with grace and gravity.
Matthew Bourne’s dance drama The Car Man turns up the heat at Sadler’s Wells as it relocates Bizet’s opera, Carmen, from a 19th-century cigarette factory in Spain to a garage and diner in early 1960s small-town America. There is sex, jealousy, murder, betrayal and revenge aplenty. You’ll both recognise some of the score and the characters, but Bourne gives both a twist in an evening of full-throttle emotion.
27 Jul, 2026 | By Lyn Gardner