Argos Archives
By Futures Theatre with Sabrina Mahfouz
A nostalgic journey of autistic self-discovery and getting a job at Argos!
She has one goal - get a job at Argos!
She loves Argos; life’s full of deceptive, nonsensical rules, but there's structure in the annual catalogue. Working there is her dream; she’s the perfect candidate; they have to hire her… right?
This 70-minute, nostalgic celebration of autistic self-discovery reminisces a life archived from the 1996 stripy-sofa edition until the catalogue’s extinction. Told by our protagonist, accompanied by Archive, organisation personified, and Argos, the mythical Grecian all-seeing God/ embodied famous high street shop.
Touring Spring 2025
For Neurodivergent Audiences
Neurodivergent led, including our creative team and lead actor
Access consultants integrated into the creation process
Written in collaboration with young neurodivergent women
All performances are relaxed, embracing audience noises and movements
Generous re-entry policy
Active consideration of the tone and intensity of technical elements
Argos Archives is a symbiotic experience for both neurodivergent and neurotypical audiences that combines both access and deliberate artistic choices, to interpret the neurodivergent experience live on stage with:
A projection-focused set, incorporating selective creative captioning, immersing audiences into our character's world
Argos and Archives as battling embodied characters, mirroring the neurodivergent thought processes.
A porous production with no fourth wall, creating a live conversation and opportunity for a shared understanding with audiences
The History
The Argos Archives is an example of a commission growing out of our long-term, artist-led engagement work for marginalised women. Futures worked with a group of 16-25 year-old participants in partnership with Coin Street Community Builders for two and a half years. Most were neuro-diverse and/or on the autistic spectrum. They faced high levels of isolation and wanted community. We commissioned Sabrina Mahfouz to work directly with the group to support their writing development and inform the development of a new production. Sabrina is an artist we have collaborated with for many years and have a strong artistic relationship with. We commissioned Sabrina in 2019 to write a piece in response to her work with this group. The group’s experience of the world as young neurodiverse women was immediately a pronounced theme of the work and something Sabrina wanted to explore artistically alongside participants. This informed the content, the characters, the work's structure, and the audience's role.
Our progress on this piece was delayed due to the pandemic, but over the years, we have completed three R&D weeks with Sabrina in which we have further explored facets of the world of the main protagonist, Woman. This process was informed at each step by neurodiverse participants and artists, who brought an authentic and vital perspective into the rehearsal room.
The Creative Team
Sabrina Mahfouz - Writer
Sabrina is a playwright, lyricist, poet and screenwriter based between London, LA and Cairo. She is the writer on Danny Boyle and Boy Blue's dance adaptation of The Matrix, premiering at The Factory in Manchester, October 2023. She was an inaugural Writer in Residence at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, where she co-wrote a critically acclaimed adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. She wrote and performed her cross-genre show A History of Water in the Middle East at the Royal Court Theatre, where she was also a co-writer and lyricist on The Song Project and Living Newspaper. Her play Chef, about an inmate of a women's prison who is also a haute cuisine chef, won a Fringe First. Her numerous other plays have been garnered a Herald Angel Award, Old Vic New Voices Award, BBC Best Drama Award, Radio Academy Award, UK Theatre Award and an Offie Award. Sabrina is currently developing new plays for Audible, Sonia Friedman Productions and The Donmar. For TV she has recently worked as a writer, consultant and/or producer on HBO's forthcoming limited thriller series Full Circle; Netflix's The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and Showtime's new spy drama, Split. She has her own shows in development with Miramax, A24 and Amazon Studios.
Caroline Bryant - Director
Caroline founded Futures Theatre Company in 1992. She has directed 22 productions with Futures, focusing on ground-breaking new writing from exciting female and non-binary artists. Recent productions include Offside by Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish (3 national tours), I’d Rather Go Blind by Somalia Seaton (Omnibus Theatre), Never Vera Blue by Alexandra Wood (Previewed at Camden People’s Theatre ahead of a run at Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe) and A Cracked Plaster Sky by Kay Adshead (Omnibus Theatre).
Becca Rowson - Producer
Becca Rowson is a queer, neurodivergent, global majority producer with a talent for championing new voices and untold stories, stemming from her Masters in Creative Producing from Mountview. She currently resides at Futures Theatre and operates as an independent producer. Previously she has spent time at The Donmar, The Golden Goose Theatre & Norwich Puppet Theatre.
Charli Davis - Video Designer
Charli is a video designer and director living and working in Los Angeles and London. Creating live visuals and online films for music tours, fashion brands, theatre, opera and art houses. She is an in house video designer and creative director at Luke Halls Studio in London.
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