Stan’s Cafe’s return to theatres this autumn with a new version of their acclaimed show, Time Critical.
One of the company’s most thought provoking productions, Time Critical visits Birmingham Rep, Birmingham (7-8 Oct 2025), Bath Spa University, Bath (10 Oct 2025) and Canterbury’s Gulbenkian Arts Centre (16-17 Oct 2025).
The performance sees two competing actors tyrannised by a chess clock. With an allocation of 34 minutes each, one struggles to intercut and condense world events from 1991 to the present, while the other grapples with Stan’s Cafe shows and personal landmarks from the same period.
With the clock ticking, across 68 increasingly tense minutes the duo spin through a cycle of elections, inventions, natural disasters, treaties, product launches, sporting successes, business failures and dance sensations – condensing each landmark.
Prompting and challenging each other, the actors find themselves re-enacting strange confrontations, fragments of famous speeches and even evocative moments from old Stan’s Cafe shows (such as All Our Money) as the chess clock ticks down towards an exhilarating finale.
Starring Craig Stephens (All Our Money, The Many Lives of PET#1, River Tours) and Kianyah Caesar-Downer (BBC One’s Doctors, Community Service), TimeCritical is a hilarious and captivating rush that explores how we live our lives in relation to the wider world, giving us a unique perspective on the spiralling nature of history.
First performed for Stan’s Cafe’s 25th anniversary in November 2016, this reworked version is 16 minutes longer – reflecting the eight eventful years that have passed since the premiere.
James Yarker, Stan’s Cafe’s Artistic Director and Director of Time Critical, said: “The show makes us think about how our lives are bound up but also separate from global events. And how our big lives amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things.
“Revisiting the show has drawn our attention to how much has happened in the last eight years, but also to how much is always happening!
“Seeing so much history pass by so fast draws our attention to how perspectives change and how some things repeat, and other things spiral.
“It should make you laugh and make you sigh.”
Stan’s Cafe is one of this country’s most inventive and playful theatre companies. Founded in 1991, their productions range from the monumental world-touring Of All The People In The World to The Many Lives of PET#1 – a community touring production exploring our relationship with plastics. The company are presently Associate Artists at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre.
For Time Critical tickets and more information, see: stans.cafe
LISTINGS
Stan’s Cafe:
Time Critical
Two competing actors, tyrannised by a chess clock, struggle to compress 34 years of global versus personal history into an allocation of just one minute each per year.
Details: https://stans.cafe/project/project-timecritical/
Tuesday 7 to Wednesday 8 October 2025
The Door, Birmingham Rep, 6 Centenary Square, Birmingham B1 2EP
Time: 7.45pm
Tickets: From £12.
* Tuesday captioned performance
Link: https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/time-critical/
Friday 10 October 2025
Bath Spa University, University Theatre, Newton St Loe, Bath BA2 9BN
Time: 7.30pm
Tickets: £10 (£7 conc)
Link: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/bathspalive/t-dvnmmad
Thursday 16 to Friday 17 October 2025
Gulbenkian Arts Centre, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NB
Time: 7.30pm
Tickets: £18
Link: https://thegulbenkian.co.uk/events/time-critical/
CREATIVES
Cast: Craig Stephens, Kianyah Caesar-Downer
Devised by: Rochi Rampal, Craig Stephens and James Yarker
Directed by: James Yarker
Produced by: Dominic Thompson
Craig Stephens: Craig graduated from the University of Warwick and gained an M.A. at Lancaster University. He has performed with a number of companies touring nationally and internationally. He has also written for amongst others; BBC Radio 4, Talking Birds, Hamfisted!, Ludlow Assembly Rooms and Lichfield Garrick Theatre. He first worked with Stan’s Cafe devising Simple Maths in 1997 since when he has been at the heart of most of the company’s activities, becoming Associate Director in 2006. For the company he has most recently performed in All Our Money, The Many Lives of PET#1 and written and performed River Tours: The Severn.
Kianyah Caesar-Downer: Kianyah is a graduate of The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Since graduating she has played Nurse Fiona on Doctors (BBC Studios), has been been to Edinburgh Fringe playing Toni in Rapsody (2022 recipient of The Pleasance’s Charlie Harthill Theatre Reserve), has toured in the play Community Service (Stan’s Cafe), has played Imani in upcoming short film The Birthmark (Violet Haze Productions), and has done a commercial for Capital One Credit Card.
James Yarker: James studied theatre at, Lancaster University. He co-founded Stan’s Cafe in 1991 and has directed all the company’s significant productions since then. As a result of this work he has been invited to guest lecture at universities across the country as well as to present papers at conferences and run many workshops at home and abroad. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and co-author, with Dr. Mark Crossley, of Devising Theatre With Stan’s Cafe (published Bloomsbury Methuen).ABOUT STAN’S CAFE
Stan’s Cafe is a theatre company (and charity). We make our work collaboratively, following exciting ideas wherever they take us, sometimes into theatres.
We love working in schools with students and teachers. Often we help out other people because we love seeing other people make great art.
We started in 1991 and we are more excited than ever before.
Web: stans.cafe
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