A young man's surreal journey through the perils and pitfalls of finding an unexpected lump in his undies! Rob Johnston has plenty of guts, writing a biting black comedy based on his own successful battle against cancer, considering the Altrincham based playwright was struck down with a form of the condition that most men would dare not talk about.

In Now Breathe Out, Rob becomes Mark and we go on an emotional journey from diagnosis to the eventual all-clear, but don't mistake the word emotional for sentimental. This play is completely devoid of sentimentality and in Mark we have a man who calls it how he sees it. In fact, there are occasions you feel he has cornered the market in cynicism!

The most affecting character is a female cancer sufferer (only Mark is given a name) who is dying. She hasn't got his spark and actually reminds you of a living ghost as she shuffles by. There are some nice surreal touches in Now Breathe Out. In fact the whole experience is surreal as it takes place in a suite, in the bowels of Manchester's posh Midland Hotel.

Written in the best tradition of Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood, Rob Johnston's gentle northern comedy is set in a supermarket. The Third World War seems to have broken out, bringing anarchy to aisle three. A customer has her eye blacked during the melee, but when she turns up in the staffroom it seems she's looking for more than just first aid.

Secrets are revealed and lives turned upside down in the space of an hour. Taking place in real time, the author shows that skilful writing and character development can be just as dramatic as frequent changes in location and chopping between scenes. The dialogue is very funny with some great one-liners and five talented actresses from Romiley Little Theatre do it justice.

An unhappy housewife's axe-filled brief encounter with a would-be burglar leads to more than either of them could have bargained for! This play resonates with nervous energy keeping things moving along nicely. There are touching scenes, funny moments and the themes are instantly recognizable, especially as the victim explains her plight. Elizabeth Poole's excellent portrayal allows you to have a strong empathy for her.

"I was impressed by the acting performed by the fledgling company, as well as the new writing." - Julia Taylor (M.E.N.)

Mental illness may be slowly shedding its taboo image but it's still a subject that most of us would rather brush under the carpet. Fortunately we have writers like Rob Johnston who confronts it head long in his play Human Habitation, an enjoyable and enlightening piece which played at Manchester's 24:7 Theatre Festival, earlier this year.

Johnston tackles the subject with honesty and humour. We certainly don't feel sorry for Blackpool lad Michael, the young father struggling to come to terms with life outside a psychiatric hospital. In fact we root for him and wish him well, rather than pitying his plight. Michael (Ben Worth) is settling into a squalid flat in down town Manchester. Sympathetic letting agent Frank (Mike Woodhead) is helping Michael settle in, while sinister John (John McElhatton) threatens trouble.

In the space of just 45 minutes, Woodhead and Worth convey a convincing if slightly unorthodox chemistry. A tribute both to their acting skills while Johnston's writing has a lovely, natural flow about it and director Christopher Neil paces it exactly right. There are plenty of insights into mental health problems and much against expectations, some smart jokes too. Rob Johnston's script has an optimistic, uncompromisingly happy ending - a very pleasant change from most contemporary dramas! - Don't miss the 24:7 interview about Human Habitation and the review at Remote Goat.

A factory in Manchester: almost the last of its kind. The men who work there: almost the last of their kind. But not quite. Until today. Friendships are tested. Loyalties are questioned. Plan A hasn’t worked. So what’s Plan B?

This two-hander shows what happens when a professional but rather repressed young woman meets an angry young man from Manchester. Susan has advertised a free fencing evening class and Danny has turned up. He is her only pupil and a homeless drug addict. He dreams of bettering himself, perhaps winning a medal, and has already attended classes in many other subjects. They lock horns and a power battle develops with plenty of verbal and physical fencing along the way. We discover Susan's secret which explains why she offered the class for free. By the end of the piece, after an exploration of the worlds and dreams of the two main characters, the roles are reversed.

The tension between Susan and Danny is very well maintained by the two performers over the 80 minutes, as you are never quite sure just how intimate they are going to become after their initial confrontation. Szilvi Naray-Davey (the driving force behind Didsbury-based theatre production company, Ignition Stage) is Hungarian-born and trained at the Lee Strasburg Theatre Institute, most famous for its ‘method’ acting approach. She ably shows us Susan's journey from prim and proper to more open-minded, while revealing her own struggle to accept a major character flaw. Phil Briggs has a considerable stage presence and veered very skilfully between the playful and the violent. His raw energy drives a fair amount of the action, as he conveys a strong sense of menace in his baiting of Susan. This production marks his professional debut.

Local writer Rob Johnston is no stranger to small theatre spaces having cut his teeth at Studio Salford and the local
24:7 Theatre Festival. Director Richard Sinnott has wrung every ounce of humour and conflict from the play and coached impressive performances from the two actors, not to mention some very exciting fencing!

Review by Andrew Edwards - The British Theatre Guide.

The three-minute technical fault delaying the evening's production was forgotten minutes into Rob Johnston's new play Under My Skin, just about as long as it took for the audience to start laughing at this creative, pitch-black comedy. The cocky Will (Ben Worth) is a self-described 'bastard', and his opening lines to the audience get us quickly on board with his ideals - everyone is out for themselves, and as the politicians get away with everything from expenses to guilt-free mass murder, then why shouldn't he? I assure you that it reads with a lot more gravity than it does in the hands of the play, which sustains solid laughs all the way through due to dialogue and the audience's nudge-wink complicity.

This isn't a play restricted by a strong need for identity and narrative, and by the end the audience is left feeling they have seen some kind of energetic and witty parable rather than a dark comedy. Carried by the great acting of all four cast members, Under My Skin further benefits from the direction of Brainne Edge and her imaginative, comedic use of limited props and space.

Having recently been selected for the inaugural Write Now Festival in Liverpool (26th March til 3rd April), this would be an excellent chance to see a funny, well-written play that is sure to make a lot more people laugh as it travels around the country.

Review by Simon Fisher - Remote Goat.

In March 2010, Breathe Out Theatre presented three stand-alone pieces of new writing at Studio Salford. Rob Johnston's 'Verbally-Challenged' winning comedy Head Space, Brett Westwell's surreal Smoking Kills and Pat Ashe's powerful Satellites.

Head Space...

JUST imagine... the working people of Liverpool rising up to take a stand against the iniquities of government, capitalism and the class system.

Considering Rid The World was set exactly 100 years ago, its themes could not be more relevant today if they tried. It tells the tale of the arrival of political activist, Tom Mann and his subsequent role in bringing the city to the brink of revolution in the name of tens of thousands of transport workers, who were under the boot of the dreaded Federation of Shipping companies. This was 1911, when England was still edging its way out of the rigidity of the Victorian class system, nearly a decade away from the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

Breathe Out Theatre’s drama is one of the first plays for some time to really tap the nerve of fermenting social struggle. Hugo Chandor as Tom Mann is superb, perfectly embodying the dignified but ruthless leader of men who came to organise the fight against the shipping moguls.

It’s hard, listening to the magnificent working-class poeticism of Rob Johnston’s script – based on Trevor Griffiths’ Such Impossibilities – not to feel a stir of revolutionary pride when Mann tells local union boss Jim Sexton, “Either we go for all out war or I’m on the next train out of Lime Street.”

Anthony Crank as Sexton plays the part of a supposed representative of the people, too easily persuaded to dance to the tune of the employers – with a hint of Derek Hatton about him, which is a nice touch if anyone wanted to find a recent example of a revolution being at risk of being ‘sold out’.

Review by Marc Waddington, Liverpool Echo.