Comment is Free on stage

After their sell-out success with pool (no water) (2024) and WINK (2025), Manchester-based ETAL Theatre returns with a new stage adaptation of James Fritz’s award-winning radio play Comment is Free (Lion’s Den, Deansgate Mews, Manchester, October 11-12, 18).

When the life of a controversial journalist is torn to pieces, whose job is it to tell the real story?

ETAL director Arthur Loades said: "In the last year alone, we have watched increasing online hatred give way to real-life violence towards public figures.

"Fritz’s script doesn’t offer any easy answers, but forces us to confront how far our empathy can stretch in such disconnected times, and to navigate our own relationships with politicians, the press, and each other. Adapting Fritz’s sprawling, relentless script for a cast of six actors has been fascinating.”

Comment is Free features Grace Houston (pool (no water), YES, The Fire Raisers) as Hilary and Michael McCredie (Island Town, Cinderella) as Ben. Roman Ryan, Eve Phillips, Leah Marks and Ellis David Wilkinson complete the cast.

Tickets here