Michael Gow’s first full-length play in a decade is a dazzling tour-de-force of theatrical invention.

Roland Henning has writer’s block. When he tries to explain the situation to a therapist, his story begins to tumble back and forth between his childhood in the Shire and his work as a playwright. At the root of it all is that extraordinary day in primary school which shattered his boyhood and plunged him headlong into the dizzy circus of life and art.

His story is funny, fiercely eloquent and shockingly honest. Toy Symphony is a wrestle between the vicious bastardry of being an artist and the sheer exhilaration of the creative act.