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Dateline: 20th October, 2005

Southwark's Blue Elephant Arts in the Balkans theatre programme opens on 26th October and runs through to 23rd December. The season (which also includes films, exhibitions and workshops) will feature nine play readings of new writing and three plays, all premiered for the first time in Britain.

The first play Pedalo, written by Nenad Velickovic, runs from Wednesday 2th October to Saturday 12th November. Two couples from Sarajevo are spending their holiday on the Croatian coast. The war in Bosnia is now part of the past, but the bombing of Serbia still lingers. One morning, they hire a pedal boat and venture away from the coast line. Something breaks and the pedal boat floats towards the open sea. The emptiness ahead transforms them, bringing out selfishness, aggression, fear of death, the desire to control, betrayal and the incapability to love... the war is again present but without a uniform, its tentacles reaching out to strangle humanity.

One of Bosnia's most renowned novelists, Nenad Velickovic has an extensive back catalogue of writing which has been translated into several different languages. This will, however, be the first time his work has been translated into English.

Following Pedalo is Hajdana Baletic's Dead Man's Coat, which runs from Wednesday 16th November to Saturday 3rd December. It is directed by the Blue Elephant's artistic director Antonio Ribeiro.

After the war, the abyss, the void. In post-war Serbia, everything seems unreal, like a dream, like a nightmare. Vera finds herself living in a flat she can no longer call home, with a stranger who knows her intimately. Can she piece her life back together when all that remains of the past is a dead man's coat?

The third production in the season is the UK Premiere of Half Life, a new play by Filip Vujosevic, which runs from Tuesday 6th to Friday 23rd December.

Living at home with their parents, young, unemployed and without any real prospects of getting a job, Crooks, Bole and Killer Belgrade live in the seedy underworld of concrete shopping centres and underpasses. As they prepare for the competition in 'Counter Strike', the violent virtual world of gangland warfare, friends become foes and promises are made to be broken when all that counts is being in the winning team…

Tickets (£9, £6 concessions) are available from the Blue Elephant box office on 020 7701 0100.

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©Peter Lathan 2005