Five Minutes to Midnight and Raoul Wallenberg Saved Me

Award-winning playwright Neil Cole delivers two remarkable plays in one performance.

"Five Minutes To Midnight" - Is a play for 2019, how do we understand and learn about the Holocaust except through the personal story of a woman who survived it; Kitia Altman one of the most powerful voices of Holocaust survival.

As people are becoming less interested with the Holocaust, Kitia (Julie Arnold) confronts a young student Madeline (Grace Cairndoff) who is forced by her school and parents to visit her at the Holocaust Museum.

Kitia moves in and out her consciousness while she waits for the young student. When the student arrives Kitia is in a mix state of awareness. The young girl is late because she was playing volleyball and forgot about the meeting.

Kitia tries to convince her that it is important to know what it was like. Many things happen in this mystical process including Kitia's famous debate with the Holocaust denier David Irving in the 90’s. The young girl is more interested in volleyball than Kittia's story. Her indifference may be confronted by the powerful personal survivor story.

"Raoul Wallenberg Saved Me" - The second play is the story of Professor Frank Varjda, (Tony Clayton) who was saved by Raoul Wallenberg the Swedish architect and businessman who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust.

Frank offers a unique offering arising out of the Germans invasion of Hungary, which tells the story of Wallenberg confronting Adolf Eichmann (Sean Paisly Colins) and questioning the banality of evil along the way. The quest to have the book published about Raoul Wallenberg," by the publisher Mary-lou (Julie Arnold) who is moved by the story.

The play relates how Wallenberg saved Frank, she believes him to be the "Banality of Evil" Frank who was there rebuts that. While she is convinced about Eichmann, still not convinced however, as it is seen as just another Holocaust story, or is it?

Frank must content himself with telling anyone he can about Raoul Wallenberg and how he saved Frank.

The play centres on the view that people are sick of holocaust stories.