And that’s the moment when I leave.

The moment when the jokes fail us. When I fail. I fail.

This precise moment here, look, see with your ears.

The Fool leaves King Lear before the blinding. Before the killing starts. Before the ice-creams in the interval.

In his new solo work, playwright Tim Crouch draws on ideas of virtual reality to send the Fool back to the future of the play that he left. Back to a world without moral leadership or integrity; a world where wealth covers vice; where the poor are dehumanised; where the jokes fall flat; where live art has become the privilege of the few.

Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel is a daringly unaccommodating piece of theatre that switches between scathingly funny stand-up and an audacious act of collective imagining. King Lear meets stand-up meets the metaverse. Crouch’s previous celebrated works include An Oak Tree, The Author, Adler & Gibb, Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation, and Beginners.

This edition was published to coincide with the production at The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in August 2022.