Arty is huge. Ginormous. Morbidly obese, he’s in need of a gastric bypass to save his life. At over 400 kilos, he’s the world’s fattest teenager. Arty is also being followed by a reality TV crew. Will he lose the kilos needed to have the op? Will he survive to eat another cream puff? Will Louise, his Pathways-to-Work officer, transform his life in ways he never imagined?
Unapologetically satiric, Beached is also the moving story of a man imprisoned in his own body. It lays bare the mercenary nature of reality TV, and turns the microscope on society’s insatiable appetite for misery.
MELISSA BUBNIC is a writer for stage and screen. Melissa's play Boys Will Be Boys (dir. Paige Rattray), starring Danielle Cormack, was commissioned and premiered by the STC in 2015 and has since been produced at London’s Bush Theatre and by Auckland’s Silo Theatre Company. Her play Beached won the 2010 Patrick White Award from the Sydney Theatre Company and was nominated for a 2013 Green Room Award. Beached premiered at the Melbourne Theatre Company and was staged at Griffin Theatre Company in Sydney in 2013. Melissa adapted Mariage Blanc by Tadeusz Różewicz (dir. Sarah Giles) for Sydney Theatre Company, co-wrote Hazel Curtis: Fear Doctor with Petra Kalive (dir. Jason Geary), wrote Shedding (dir. Sam Strong) for La Mama, and Citizen Corps (dir. Clare Watson) for Platform Youth Theatre. Her play Stop. Rewind (dir. Anne Browning) premiered at Red Stitch Theatre in Melbourne in 2010 and toured Australia in 2012. In 2011 Melissa completed a Masters in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is currently writing commissioned plays for the Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, and Griffin Theatre Company. Melissa has written for the TV series Shameless (UK), Hollyoaks, and Crackanory, and is developing numerous TV projects. She is currently writing two feature film screenplays: an adaptation of Jamaica by Malcolm Knox for Black Milk Productions and director Robert Connolly, and &Mrs for Who’s On First Productions in the UK.
| Cast Info | 3F, 1M |
| Genres | Drama, Satire, Black Comedy |
| Themes | Significant female roles |
| Audiences | Adult, Young Adult, Secondary: Years 11-12 |
| Extent | 72 |
| Edition | CTS |
| Size | 210 x 137 |