The Finborough Theatre have announced two world premiere staged readings today: Service by Nina Millns and Darkie Armo Girl by Karine Bedrossian.

The world premiere staged reading of Service, directed by the Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre Justin Audibert, plays for one night at the multi-award-winning venue on 25 April.

Eighty-year-old Fitz sits in a counselling session trying to piece together fragmented memories of joining the British Army and finding himself posted to Cyprus. 

Before coming to England, his counsellor Dimitris deserted from the Cypriot army, but he can’t share that with Fitz…

A stunning award-winning new play from a new playwright, winner of the ETPEP Award 2021, Service is a complex conflict of masculinity, colonialism and loyalty – in a room at the heart of the Empire. 

The world premiere staged reading of Darkie Armo Girl, directed by Anastasia Bunce and written and performed by Karine Bedrossian, plays for one night at the Finborough Theatre on 9 May.

A true story.

1915. The Armenian Genocide. Families are marched across the Syrian desert to their death. Those who survive are scattered around the world.

1974. An Armenian family fleeing a civil war, arrive in the UK with £35, a suitcase and the address of a relative. 

1976. One careless mistake. Nine months and one near fatal C-section later, Karen Mary Bedrossian is born into a perfectly fine life and grows up in a perfectly fine house in Richmond, Surrey. But inside her lies a secret deep, dark pain that rips her to shreds on a daily basis. By eighteen, she’s homeless, penniless, and her only friends are a couple of heroin addicts and criminals. The solution? Start again. Become a famous pop star. Then everyone would love and admire her and she’d be whole.

Wouldn’t she?

Developed with the Finborough Theatre, Darkie Armo Girl is a new solo play from British-Armenian writer and performer Karine Bedrossian about surviving life with the innocence of a child, but the destructive self-abandon of a suicide bomber.

For more information and to book tickets, please click here.