Details

A piece of very black comedy, based on the gruesome true story of 3 rival dentists, and their search for an effective anaesthetic. Welcome to The Etherdome... In 1850s America, at the start of the so-called Scientific Age, major surgery is still carried out with only a stiff whisky to calm the nerves and tooth extractions with a bit of alcohol or a stick to bite on. A blood-spattered operating theatre was the stark reality. But all that was about to change. In a fairground tent, alongside tea-leaf fortune-tellers, an amazing discovery is made by accident. But who actually made it? Join Penny Dreadful as they travel from Carny Show to laughing-gas party, to nightmare operating theatre. Using high energy physical comedy, scary apparatus - and a bluegrass chorus - they follow the dentists on a journey that ends in addiction, lunacy, and death. But they leave behind a discovery that changes medicine forever.

Cast/Performers

Dennis Herdman, Denise Kelly, Philippe Spall

Creatives/Company

Author: Bernadette Russell
Producer(s): Penny Dreadful, Richard Jordan Productions Ltd (in association with Assembly)
Director: Mick Barnfather
Design: Phil Eddolls
Lighting: Christoph Wagner