"This is a brilliant portrait of a complex and contradictory historical character ... restrained and subtle ... in a language which, with a twenty first century touch, reflects and respects the rhetorics and thinking of the seventeenth century."
Professor Lars Fant

Jon spent a year researching for the play in 1998/9. He was advised by Professor Jackman, Emeritus Professor of History, University of British Columbia. The script was read in several London poetry societies before being performed by Jon Hewitt at the Edinburgh Festival 2002 at Venue 40, Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace and on the World Art Stage in Princes Street Gardens, where it was recorded.

Cast & Production Team

Frank - Robin Sneller
Ben - Tom Walker
Andy - Peter Cadwell
Rich - James Bradshaw
Xuxa - Shalonne Lee
Director - Nancy Hirst
Design - Lucille Acevedo-Jones

About the play
Violent Outing is about the real nature of learning and discovery. Three initiates think they know what they want when they arrive in a foreign land, but their teacher (an ex-pat Englishman) is a trickster, confusing and challenging them. His lessons are about experience and brutality, and are a far cry from the fair competition and acclaim the initiates think they will easily gain from sport. Finally, Xuxa, the goddess of the Carnival, bursts in, in a masque, with a revelation of the world. Frank is destroyed, one of the initiates reveals he has created the situation, before being himself banished, and Xuxa demonstrates the power of a cultural celebration utterly beyond the understanding of the remaining two innocents, before herself vanishing.