Popping-in?

Our studio is filled with light and music.
There are multiple meeting rooms, a well stocked kitchen, and an indoor garden (with fishpond). Talk to us about access needs, environmental factors and any accommodations we might make to enhance your visit. Pop-in for tea and stay to use a spare desk for as long as you need.

11 Greenwich Centre Business Park,
53 Norman Road, Greenwich
London SE10 9QF

Cog is a Certified B Corporation

Public transport

We’re next to Greenwich train and DLR station. We have a door right on the concourse but it’s different to our postal address.
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From Greenwich rail platform

This video shows the route to take from the train that will arrive at Greenwich rail station from London Bridge. There's a gentle slope next to the staircase.

From Greenwich DLR station

This video shows the route to take from the DLR that will arrive at Greenwich DLR station from Bank. There's a lift at the platform level if that's useful.

By car

If you have to come by car, we have a couple of parking spaces. We have a charging point that you are welcome to use if you have an electric car. Call ahead and we'll make sure the spaces are free. Use our postcode (SE10 9QF) to guide you in.

Get in touch

We’d love to hear from you. Use whichever medium works best for you.

11 Greenwich Centre Business Park,
53 Norman Road, Greenwich
London SE10 9QF

Cog is a Certified B Corporation

New project enquiry

It's exciting to chat about potential new projects. We don't have a ‘sales’ team or a form to fill in. Call us or give us a little detail via email and we'll get straight back to you.

enquiry@cogdesign.com

Website support

If you're a client then you'll be best served by calling us or contacting us via ClickUp, otherwise you can use this dedicated email that reaches all of the digital team.

digital@cogdesign.com

Finance questions

This email hits the inboxes of the people who deal with our bookkeeping and finances.

accounts@cogdesign.com

Just want a chat?

Sometimes enquiries don't fall neatly under a heading, do they?

hello@cogdesign.com

Cultural Calendar

A round-up of recommendations and reviews, sent on the first Friday of each month, topped-off with a commissioned image from a talented new illustrator. Sign-up and tell your friends.

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Cog News

An irregular update of activity from our studio. Showing off about great new projects, announcements, job opportunities, that sort of thing. Sign-up and tell your friends.

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National Youth Theatre’s Tory Boyz

National Youth Theatre’s Tory Boyz

It’s five years since James Graham’s Tory Boyz was at Soho Theatre. I can still remember the rave reviews and kicking myself for missing it. Now that I’ve seen the revival I regret missing the original even more.

James Graham has reworked his script now that the Tories are in power. Of course they are sharing power but I’m too prudish to quote the sexual metaphor that actor Sope Dirisu uses to describe that unsatisfying relationship.

The play was written not long after the Civil Partnership Act was passed, the debates for which threw the spotlight onto the reactionary figures of the right. Now, in the year that the coalition has passed a same-sex-marriage bill, the tenet of the play seems even more pertinent.

The Tories are in power. Of course they are sharing power but I’m too prudish to quote the sexual metaphor that actor Sope Dirisu uses to describe that unsatisfying relationship.
Michael Smith

Sam (Simon Lennon) is a researcher in Parliament, putting in his time and taking the first steps in his political career. We see him wrestling with a conundrum. He is gay, everyone around him knows he is gay; nobody minds him being gay as long as he doesn’t confirm that it’s true.

We hear about a marriage between two male MPs, taking place in the House, but as Sam’s boss points out, they waited ‘til they’d reached the top of their profession before coming out.

It’s fine to be (discretely) gay in the Westminster Village says Sam’s bullying boss, but you have to get there first. It’s the Conservative party members in the home-counties heartland that have to select and vote for you, Nobody will say it matters but it matters.

Sam is haunted (literally at one point) by the presence of Ted Heath (brilliantly played by Niall McNamee) whose life-story is intertwined between scenes. Rumours abound that Heath became a withdrawn and socially dysfunctional figure, tormented by (and the target of blackmail because of) his sexuality.

Heath’s story is poignantly summed up through a meeting with his childhood girlfriend. They sit on swings and talk of what might have been in a beautifully acted moment.

The play is bulked out a little by Sam’s research trip to a school. He has to talk them through a mock debate and that gave an excuse to educate us all about parliamentary procedure.

I was getting a little irritated by the ‘yoof, ya getme?’ talk until an unexpected moment of tenderness between Sam and his most mouthy student. A clash of culture and a misplaced fist-bump turn into the holding of hands and a tender talk about the repression of a Caribbean family upbringing.

Sam returns to his office, his boss and the ever-patient man who has been seeking a date with him throughout the play. I won’t spoil the ending or describe the path it takes but I can say I was pleased to be taken on the journey.

It’s easy to see how James Graham became entranced by the backroom politics of Parliament; it’s an intense world that magnifies every situation. This was obviously a much smaller production than his later, This House but it has the same sharp wit, layered nuance and snappy dialogue.