Honestly

From an award winning company comes a prescient drama, entertaining and questioning.

Chloe is undoubtedly in trouble. She’s already been found guilty. And next? That depends on the psychologist’s report.

Emma is undoubtedly in trouble. She has to write the report. It has to be accurate. So, ask a compulsive liar if she’s telling the truth.

And she is. A compulsive liar. A condition or a con, villain or victim, deserving of care or incarceration? Chloe has spent much of her life switching between the characters we’ll share. So, who is in the room with Emma today?

Faced with a cloud of lies where does she find truth and where is the honesty of her own life? What price truth, reality even, in a post-truth era? And why not live outside accepted boundaries?

Honestly?

Written & Directed by Antony Bellekom

Shona Maule (Chloe)

Training: Guildford School of Acting

Theatre includes: Facing The Waves (Dogwood Productions),The Threepenny Opera (The Minack Theatre), Marie Curie (Aria Entertainment), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (OVO), The Importance of Being Earnest (OVO); Jack and the Beanstalk (Eva Long Productions)

Credits whilst training include: Sally (Me and My Girl); Nuttall (Betty Blue Eyes); Friar Lawrence (Romeo & Juliet) 

Shona is also a multi-instrumentalist and a musical director

Robbie Bellekom (Emma)

Training: East 15

Theatre includes: Villain, Interrupted (Vaults Festival); Rotterdam (Theater Richtie);  Facing The Waves and Another Winter’s Tale (Dogwood Productions), Awful Auntie (Birmingham Stage Company: UK National Tour)

Puppetry  includes: Sarah & Duck (MEI Entertainment); Pinocchio (Norwich Puppet Theatre), When Seagulls Saved the World (Brave Biscuit Studios)

TV: Diomysus (BBC 3)

Audio: Flintlocks & Fireballs (Podcast); Omnispace (The Printernet)

Laura Turner (Ruth)

Theatre includes:  Macbeth, Private Lives and Wuthering Heights (Asylum Players); Matryoshka (Theatre 503); Gaslight (Common Ground Theatre); Body Or Soul (Fury Theatre); Blackadder II (Cakes And Ales Theatre Company)

Film includes: The Bennetts At Christmas (Crow’s Eye Films); The Lady In The Lake (Ignis Films); 1981 (Hammond House Films)

Laura is also a playwright and screenwriter and director of her company Fury Theatre.

About Dogwood Productions
Dogwood Productions specialises in new writing, taking its work to community venues, art centres and theatres, including the RSC at Stratford, and being transmitted on both BBC Radio 4 and the World Service.

Dogwood is a national theatre partner for the RNLI and its recent musical, Facing The Waves,  reflected life in coastal communities and the service of the crews down through the generations. The production has toured the East Coast and appeared at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and will return touring nationally in 2027.

A previous musical, The Shearing Gang, brought together professional and community performers, for a summer season at three large outdoor venues in Cornwall. Its winter inspired show, Another Winter’s Tale, combined live music with the drama, plus puppetry and Japanese street theatre and toured for three years..

As a community interest company, Dogwood is not for profit and invests in producing new shows and creating workshops, particularly for young people.

The writer and director,  Antony Bellekom, is a former producer of BBC Radio 4’s The Archers, and his broadcasting career included Managing Editor of BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music.

His work for Dogwood Productions often utilises reminiscence recordings as a research tool, capturing experiences and aspirations. His productions include the company’s Facing The Waves and Another Winter’s Tale, also Chicane’s Law (Gate), No Way Back (Touring); Chicane’s Law (Touring) The Promise, a ballad opera that toured cathedrals, and a devised piece, Radio, Radio that was created for and performed in the hold of a converted cargo ship.

Visit www.dogwoodproductions.co.uk to find out more.