Greig Coetzee presents

White Men With Weapons

2013 Onwards

Creator: Greig Coetzee

Small to middle scale

Winner of a Scotsman Fringe First award for Innovation In Theatre and Outstanding New Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2000.

What happens to the minds of men who are forced to fight a senseless war in a foreign land?

Sometimes the real terror to be fought is the one inside us.

Written and performed by Greig Coetzee, this South African theatre classic is by turns funny, poignant and harrowing.

Coetzee’s 13 characters will take you on a switchback ride through the old South African Defence Force, beginning just before Mandela's release from jail.

A corporal from hell, a drug-crazed Durban Rambo and an Anglican chaplain with Tutu-phobia are just three of the many creatures you will meet during this journey into the heart of South Africa’s forgotten wars with its neighbours. And along the way Mandela walks free, forcing the punch-drunk, bloodshot soldiers to face their final battle as the sun rises on a new country.

"A biting, multi-layered masterpiece."  - The Stage

Greig Coetzee, Writer and Performer:
"White Men With Weapons is my response to a year as a military conscript during 1990. I entered the South African Defence Force as a self-righteous left-wing political activist and immediately refused to carry a rifle.
I went through military training without a weapon, at times carrying a table instead. It was rather like being in a Beckett piece that lasted 12 months. Except that Godot did arrive in the form of Nelson Mandela, and I realised that I had to record my very special vantage point of this historical moment from within the machine."

“A central performance which must be one of the finest of the entire festival” -  Daily Mail

"The kind of performance that, on film, wins Oscars” -  Real Time (Australia)

If you would like to book White Men With Weapons please contact Nat Jones

View Greig Coetzee's Online Brochure

To see tour dates for all of our productions please click here