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Presented by Stan's Cafe

Two competing actors, tyrannised by a chess clock, struggle to compress 34 years of global vs personal history (1991 - 2025) into an allocation of just one minute each per year.

This “hilarious and thought provoking” show bounces between international politics and stories from individuals’ lives. It accelerates through reenactments of landmark moments in recent history and fragments of past Stan’s Cafe productions towards an exhilarating finale against the clock.

Time Critical is about how we live our lives in relation to the world around us. It gives us a new perspective on the spiralling nature of history.

“Loved my first Stan’s Cafe show tonight. Learned more in an hour than I did the whole of GCSE history I reckon!”

Stan’s Cafe is one of this country’s most inventive and playful theatre companies. Founded in 1991, they have toured the world and are now Associate Artists at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre.

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Members get 40% off tickets for this event.

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Time Critical

Thu 16 - Fri 17 October

ART31

ART31 takes its name from Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, which states that ‘Children have the right to relax and play, and to join in a wide range of cultural, artistic and other recreational activities’.

ART31 is a vision created with, by, and for young people in Kent, championing the belief that all children and young people have an entitlement to access high quality arts and culture, to empower them to achieve their creative potential, and to genuinely engage young people as equal partners in any decision making that affects them.

The ART31 Youth Board is made up of young people from across Kent aged 13-25 who steer its governance, and influence policy and practice across the county and beyond, challenging the creative sector to examine existing ways of working and integrate young people into the core of their practice.

Our projects with young people

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