WonderIfTheatre premieres SoftLad/. A beautifully haunting new piece of writing, exploring the rite of passage of four young men in 2022.

Set in a working-class Mancunian town, the teenagers attempt to fathom the kind of men they want to be and more importantly, are expected to be as they battle to find the courage to make their own decisions when faced with the weight of expectation placed on them.

Brother deals with the torment of a family tragedy. Egg faces the decision to come out to his friends. Fish doesn’t know what it is to be a man, scared of bringing shame to his family. And Incel? Well, Incel is determined to protect men from the threat of an empowered women’s movement.

SoftLad/ is a cautionary tale of the pressures we place on young men in modern society and the friction they feel; caught between traditional expectations and an ever fluid narrative of manhood.

“Come back to us when you’ve pruned yourself into that finger-food quiche that we can pop into our mouths and chew, over champagne flutes at white weddings. Or spit at, with mouths full of pork scratchings and Carling. No, I’m madrí, I’m aperol spritz on a winter’s morn at the offy. I’m completely out of place.”

WonderIf is a brave and bold Northern theatre company, which affords aspiring actors their first opportunity to stage and tour professional productions. Fuelled by imagination, innovation and true Mancunian grit, this young and innovative company trains and supports the next generation of theatre actors. With a deliberate attention to those stories that are hard to tell, we focus on the poignancy of narratives that have been left unheard and stage them with a fearless physicality.