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American Candy Documents Mysterious Openings Of Empty American Candy Stores Across The UK In New Play Heading On Tour
- Hinton Magazine
- Aug 6
- 2 min read
From producers The Mango Ensemble finalists for prestigious 2025 National Diversity Award to advocate for more diversity in the arts
American Candy, a new comedy-crime play by Tom Murray and directed by Francesca Hsieh (I'm Sorry I'm Not Lucy Liu; Don't Call Me China Doll), will tour the UK from 8 September, including London, Oxford, Bedford, Bolton, Newcastle and Birmingham. The play’s producers, The Mango Ensemble, are finalists for the prestigious 2025 National Diversity Awards to support diverse, young emerging artists priced out of the theatrical landscape.
Inspired by the opening of mysterious American Candy Stores that take up prime real estate across the UK that no one seems to go in and yet many have been reported as fronts for criminal activity, American Candy is a thrilling dark comedy about capitalist corruption, “bullshit jobs”, and the distrust it generates.
Zaynab and Connor work in an American Candy store. It’s closing time and a customer still hasn’t left. 10 minutes later, they’re hiding her unconscious body in a basement. What they discover next will change their lives forever.
At the heart of the play, American Candy asks: what does it take for us to trust one another, and why are societal anxieties in the UK increasingly projected onto minorities?
Playwright Tom Murray said: “American Candy is a sociological exploration of the ‘bullshitisation’ of the modern workplace. Technological developments should have relieved us of the burden of most work, but we find ourselves doing more work than ever, which has proved a useful distraction from the widening inequality in society. A busy population is an unthinking population, and the ‘American Candy store’ was a perfect metaphor for this. The shop for which no one asked, of which no one knows the true purpose, and the ‘front’ that is increasingly becoming all of our lives. In American Candy, I wanted to explore how this corruption creates a climate of suspicion, which is then projected onto minorities.”
Winner of the Peter Shaffer Award and a Charlie Hartill Finalist, producer of The Mango Ensemble, Layla Chowdhury, said following the company being shortlisted for the National Diversity Awards: “We need to spend care and attention on diversity in the arts. When it doesn’t happen, programming becomes ‘safe,’ white and middle class; both in the emerging art world and the established theatre world. More companies need to think with diversity as a priority, not an after-thought or a box to tick.”
Tour dates:
8 - 10 September, Omnibus Theatre, London
11 - 12 September, Oxford Playhouse Studio, Oxford
13 September, The Place Theatre, Bedford
16 September, Octagon Theatre, Bolton
17 September, Northern Stage Studio, Newcastle
20 September, MAC, Birmingham
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