Powerful, real-life-inspired, one-man play about a son searching for his father…in a fish & chip shop.
‘His father seemed like an ordinary, hard-working man but Riccardo knows that somewhere in the grease-stained walls of his crumbling inheritance – a run-down fish and chip shop- the truth is hidden. However, time is against him, the shop is about to be sold and it won’t give its secrets up easily. Battling demented customers, family curses, and supernatural agents of the state, join him on his tragicomic journey as he excavates the ruins of the family business and revisits the past to uncover the truth about his mysterious father.’
Lorenzo is a solo creative. He studied Writing for Stage and Screen at the University of Strathclyde in 2013 and has written work for himself ever since. His shows have featured at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival, MagicFest, Carlisle Fringe, Brighton Fringe, Crossroads Multicultural Festival in Pisa, and the West End Festival.
His work spans the genres of Storytelling, Theatre and Magic: as well as being an Equity-registered Actor, Lorenzo is also an accomplished Magician and member of the Magic Circle.
He began writing Cracked Tiles, a theatrical monologue, in 2015, several years after the death of his father, and admits that the show was initially ‘a vehicle of catharsis’.
Since then Cracked Tiles has been intermittently staged around the UK and recently had a NEAT-funded tour in the North of Scotland. It returns for a schedule of performances in the UK and abroad over 2024 and 2025, with a view to reaching a wider audience and a production company who will facilitate its development for TV.
The play is inspired by the author’s experience as a teenager when his father’s strange behaviour led to suspicion that he may be hiding dark secrets. These episodes were framed as psychotic breakdowns, but at the time, the notion that his father was fragile, broken and out of touch with reality was an equally difficult pill to swallow. In this sense, Cracked Tiles is about the mystery of a father and the confusion of a child.
It’s been described as ‘Bitterly honest, powerful and moving’ (The Scotsman) but it’s not without levity: the central story is moved along with farcical comedy inspired by many of the colourful characters Lorenzo encountered during his time working in his family’s real-life fish and chip shop. Cracked Tiles is a tale imbued with authenticity: both its tragedy and its comedy.
Written & performed by Lorenzo Novani
