Intervu The Flutter Paradox

“Painting the Roses Red”

I sit down with Corey Rhys Edwards and Nellie, members of Cwtch Productions to chat to them about their new show, The Flutter Paradox and the industry for young creatives as a whole in 2026.

“And I’m speaking personally, this is terrifying! Being one of the faces of your writing in a show where you’re sort of exposing yourself to an audience completely is such a bloody scary thing to do but its also been such an amazing thing within myself to be like I can do it! I’m doing it! This is sick!” 

What is The Flutter Paradox?

Nellie, one of the co-writers, sells it to me: “The play is about two people: Gina and Archie and they are people who are never allowed to meet. If they meet, basically, lots of people will die but if they don’t meet Gina’s going to live a really horrible life in a place where she’ll be infinitely unhappy. That is battled with these two experts, Zoe and Freddy (I’m playing Zoe) and they choose the life that these characters are going to live so they try and do everything in their power for these two characters to not meet and not cross paths. So it's kind of battling morality and those choices and the choice between love and death and these two people who have no idea how their lives are going to go a certain way. It’s a massive play with a massive storyline.”

Corey adds, “What if I didn’t speak to this person in this certain scenario? Would my life have gone down this certain path? The real beauty is watching the experts who exist in this sort of limbo world. It's the perfect example of head vs heart.”

Nellie jumps back in, “To be honest, its about many things. It’s kind of about the “What ifs?” the butterfly effect mixed with the sliding door theory. It’s kind of choices. I think about it all the time. Sometimes you see it in TV and film and all these different scifi situations but I thought, lets put it into a theatre show.”

I ask about the process behind the play?

“Myself and Cheta Mmeka was our dissertation in our third year of drama school” Nellie tells me,  “and we gravitated towards each other immediately because we wanted to do something that was a bit different. I did bring to her, you know, “I think about this when I’m on the tube, what if I didn’t get this tube, I actually missed that tube and had to get the next one and then something happened that wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t get that tube - it was just all these different things that brought the idea on.”” 

“It was a 50/50 collaborative process and yeah it was just a really enjoyable process as well because its such a theory. It’s so much bigger than you and so to actually narrow it down, to put a story to this enormous theory - it was really fricking difficult but really amazing. There are what if’s in every bloody thing in the world. It was a really amazing experience to collaborate and bring to these actors, especially since it was our dissertation, that were first years and second years and we brought this elaborate idea to them and it was received really amazingly. And you know the conversations afterwards were really interesting  as well. Stuff that we hadn’t really thought of ourselves, which was brilliant.”

“I think when you get given a dissertation, you kind of dread having to do a dissertation so there’s this endless pressure of…“Shit! I need to cast these people and I need to make this story and I need to do it in this timeframe…” and its just a different gravy at the end of the day. But I choose to do this and I am excited about it and its so scary because its the real world. But as I said earlier its incredible that I’m doing this, do you know what I mean?”

“I’d like to add to the Flutter Paradox situation. I think, as I said earlier, its such a big theory and such a big idea that if you were allowed to have so many different ideas - and I’ve had so many, so many - but maybe not the time or space to put these amazing ideas whether its tech or voice or  movement or all these different things and I think it would be so cool to bring it forward and elevate a new sort of way of mixing the sci fi and the naturalism. I think it would be really cool if there was enough time and space to bring it to something phenomenal - if that was possible.”

Corey adds, “I think for Nellie it is the first example of it. I have previously had the experience of producing and staging other work, similar to the sort of stuff some of it completely new written work that being put on or some of it, a dissertation that's been evolved into a full production play but I know for Nellie this is her first experience of taking that on and taking that script that originally existed and elevating that again.

Ellie responds honestly, “For me, its kind of…the industry has been incredibly super dry for me personally, so when Corey approached me and said right, I’ve heard your dissertation through this previous show you’ve put on and this was an opportunity at the end of the day to put on work yourself because you’re not really receiving much.”

“The Flutter Paradox”

Why should people come to see it?

Corey starts: “I think similarly its the kind of thing that provokes the audiences thoughts. I think the best thing you can do in theatre is where you leave someone coming out wondering a different perspective to someone else. I think this is a great idea of that. It makes you think, it gets you going and it makes you wonder, ‘would I have done that?’ ‘what would I do in that situation?’ It’s also just a lovely, funny, sort of quirky story that is very relatable.

What do you want people to take away from it?

“For me its kind of that feeling of subjective audiences, I think its the best thing you can do in any kind of theatre or film or tv or any kind of media where the audience comes out with these conflicting opinions and their own ideas and people talk and have these healthy debates like “Well I wouldn’t have done that” and the other person is like  “I completely agree with the ending.” It’s that idea of healthy productive debate that gets the audiences talking and coming back to see it because they want to see the richer, the deeper stories and how you evolved that moment and its that beautiful audience debate for me.”

“I agree. I agree.” Nellie chimes in agreement.

How did Cwtch Productions come about?

“Kind of an amalgamation of it all really.” Corey tells me, “So myself and Nellie, we actually used to live together in the first year of drama school. I’m very familiar with her. I went to another drama school down the line but I originally studied at Italia Conti with her, so I knew of her anyway, I was recommended her play and went with that. We knew Max, he currently lives me, so he’s a good friend of mine. So someone like Lizzie, I never knew her and Nellie had only come into passing with her on a few occasions but she did a nice audition and she was just phenomenal and the kind of energy we wanted to bring in and she was someone we hadn’t considered and a similar thing with Oliver, who was someone I was aware of but because of the gap between year groups I didn’t really know him. Again, the audition was phenomenal, so we just brought him in. 

“It’s pretty cool, what if choices, etc.” Nellie says, alluding to The Flutter Paradox

Corey goes on, “Yes, everyone is of drama school backgrounds. Some of our cast, Nellie and Max trained at Italia Conti in the same year. Oliver, whose also part of our cast, is part of fourth monkey which is where I graduated from, he was the year below me. And Lizzie is a graduate of the Oxford School of Drama. So its kind of like that nice amalgamation of people who’ve come through a similar system and have a lot of shared experience but have also got loads of different ones as well and all come together.”

“The Flutter Paradox”

Is there anything you are excited to see yourself?

Corey starts, “This is a random one but I’ve recently started watching “Succession” and that is a work of art. It’s just a masterclass in writing, the tension is phenomenal, if you haven’t seen it then I couldn’t recommend it more. Similarly, I try to, being in the company and the work that I do, I try and see as much as possible, seeing things that maybe others don’t and you know trying to get everything I can. I’m particularly interested in the upcoming Camden Fringe, there’s always some real amazing hidden gems in there.”

“Yes. I also agree with that!” Nellie exclaims, “I think we’re in a day and age where theatre isn’t becoming as accessible to young creatives…or just people! To be honest. Every frickin person in the world it’s not accessible too if you don’t have the dollar. Seeing these shows and young creatives or creatives in general putting there shows on is so exciting! And its so ballsy! And I’m speaking personally, this is terrifying! Being one of the faces of your writing in a show where you’re sort of exposing yourself to an audience completely is such a bloody scary thing to do but its also been such an amazing thing within myself to be like I can do it! I’m doing it! This is sick!” 

Corey comes back in, “Similarly, especially with The Flutter Paradox, I had the honour of seeing some of the original work and, I’m also directing it, I don’t know if I mentioned that or not yet, but seeing the evolution of what it used to be and now what its becoming is so gorgeous. You watch this piece of theatre which started out as a dissertation become a true, real, proper piece of theatre - fully formed! An amazing cast putting all the effort in! It’s just very inspiring!”

Any advice you would give another creative?

“I would simply tell them: just do it. Like we discussed earlier in the interview, it's a very dry patch in the industry at the moment, I’m a two year graduate myself now and you know, work can be sporadic. The best thing any artists or creative can do is to throw themselves into it, if you’ve got a script get it on its feet, if you see that casting call then why not apply, if you want to do a bit of directing then why not try because all of these things are so accessible and the fringe scene has some real amazing hidden gems within it so you just want to delve in as far as you can.”

“Yep. Agree with that as well. Thank you for that Corey.”

What’s next?

“Speaking from the company point of view, we’ve got  plenty of wonderful things coming up. I’ve got my own personal wrote thing that’s going to be the next sort of project which is very exciting. But outside of the company and looking towards the “Flutter Paradox.” I think this script has tremendous  potential and it would be such a shame to only give it a two day run and we have potential with how it performs in the next couple of weeks, seeing if it does well, of elevating it and taking it even further and building and creating this full on amazing stage play be that in a bigger more established venue or maybe in the dream world, going to the Edinburgh Fringe!” Corey exclaims.

Cwtch Productions can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/cwtch_productions/

Tickets for The Flutter Paradox can be found at: https://www.trybooking.com/uk/events/landing/115104

“The Flutter Paradox”

By Ethan H.M.M