Life with Oscar

Actor/Filmmaker Nick Cohen relives his desperate Hollywood years - a tragicomic true-life ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ 

Nick flees Croydon and his dysfunctional family to live as a permanent guest on Sunset with a double Oscar-winner; a man who worked regularly with Orson Welles, promising to get Nick’s film nominated if he follows Exact Instructions. 

Life with Oscar upends La La Land in a confessional rollercoaster ride through its dark, twisted underbelly; aptly premiered, at Underbelly Edinburgh to rave reviews and an Office nomination.

‘Nick Cohen is a theatrical and comedic genius. A one-man army…. This is a MUST SEE’ Broadway Baby 5 Stars

‘Nick Cohen … bears all the hallmarks of a Theatre de Complicite Graduate. The choice of work is daring, the imagery striking, the acting understated yet bold.’ Time Out (On ‘The Power and The Glory.)

A frenetically physical retelling, featuring 29 different characters, from the man who modelled the Oscar trophy itself to the psychopathic producer’s daughter destined to be Nick’s ‘mystic bride,’ we journey from South London to Hollywood and back again. Accompanied by fragments of films past and present, scored with layered compositions by Jon Ouin and the cinematic direction of Nicholas Pitt, this show is a hilarious and moving confession. 

A Faustian tale of pre #MeToo Hollywood, where predators and victims are sometimes hard to distinguish, or one and the same. A deepening spiral of desperation, delusion and debt littered with metaphorical, and occasionally, real, corpses. Life with Oscar is an on-stage exorcism of a man haunted by Hollywood, but it is also an examination of questions of ambition, shame, failure and sacrifice that haunt us all.

Life with Oscar will transfer to the Arcola Theatre in April before an international tour.