Breaking the Castle is a play that at its heart humanises, challenges and then lingers with you long after you leave the theatre and head back into a world where addiction is growing, and the stigma and shame that surround remains pervasive.

Written and performed by Peter Cook and based on lived experience, it can be viewed as an act of courage or radical acceptance. It delivers a darkly comic yet nuanced portrayal of a man’s struggle with addiction in all its intensity and banality. We are reminded by Cook’s addiction counselor that there is power in owning one’s own story, and Cook owns his with great humility.

Peter Cook: Breaking the Castle. Photo supplied

The play is structured as a tightly written 90-minute monologue, with Cook moving deftly from one scene to the next, from character to character. It is in transitional moments that elements of comic relief come through allowing the audience a reprieve from the relentlessness of the subject matter.

Cook, a struggling actor yearning for a chance to audition in the Shakespeare play coming up at the Opera House, delivers monologues reminiscent of the Bard himself. For all...