Private Peaceful : A Play For A Small Ensemble

The Peaceful brothers, Tommo and Charlie, have a tough rural childhood facing the death of their father, financial hardship and a cruel landlord. Their fierce loyalty to each other pulls them through, until one day they both fall for the same girl. And then the Great War comes. A story of courage, devotion and sibling rivalry on what may be their last night on earth.

Spun

Spun is the exhilarating debut play from Rabiah Hussain. Seen through the eyes of two British Pakistani Muslim girls from East London, this funny and moving drama unravels the makings of a friendship, microaggressions in the city, and the challenge of keeping rooted through unstable times.

Mrs Beeton Says...

A charming and vibrant musical examining the life and legacy of this extraordinary woman.

Time and Tide

Time and Tide is an LGBTQ-themed comedy drama about a Norfolk community struggling with change.

Little Miss Burden

The Wind of Heaven

Dilys Parry, an inconsolable Crimean War widow, lives in Blestin, a village which has no children, sin's no son's, and worships no god since a disaster snatched away all its youth. She is gradually re-awakened to life once a Miracle boy's influence b…

The Alternative

What if Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom? What if Home Rule had passed? What if there was no War of Independence? No Civil War? No partition? What if the island had only one soccer team?

The Butterfly Lion

A Christmas Carol (Harris)

Set in North Wales, this funny, immersive version of Dickens’ festive classic tale explores a living, breathing Victorian community.

How To Save a Rock

Winner of the NSDF Samuel French New Play Award 2019. How To Save A Rock is a climate-change comedy about how to still have hope.

Art Heist

Three Thieves break into the same gallery on the same night.

They’re all intent on stealing the same extremely valuable painting. They’re bound to meet and it’s bound to get messy.

Spliced

Timmy plays hurling, the fastest field sport in the world. He loves it. He hates it.

Honest, brave and hard-hitting, "Spliced" is a visceral account of his struggle to become an individual outside of the sporting institution that raised him.

Bobby & Amy

A new dark comedy about foot-and-mouth disease by Fringe First award winner Emily Jenkins.

It's the late 90s: Take That, Tamagotchis and Pog swaps. When Bobby and Amy meet, hundreds of cows dot across the fields and the sun always shines.

But when the cows begin to burn, Bobby and Amy’s sleepy Cotswold town faces a catastrophe that will change their home forever.

Bobby & Amy explores friendship and what happens when our way of life is threatened by those who don’t understand it.

How Not To Drown

Hilarious, painful and uplifting, How Not to Drown shares a story of endurance for a little kid who wasn’t safe or welcome anywhere in the world.

How To Be Brave

When Katie was little, she was brave: climbing trees and riding bikes too fast. Now Katie’s a mum, she must be brave in a new way.  Determined her daughter will keep the fierce magic she arrived into the world with, Katie sets off on a mission around Newport with the help of a stolen BMX, a policewoman with bad hair, and a pigeon in a bag.

Siân Owen’s one-woman play, produced by the company behind fringe hit Sugar Baby,  is about what we’re made of and learning to be brave when your world’s falling apart.

Whitewash

White Pearl

In Singapore, Clearday™ has developed from a small startup into a leading international cosmetic brand. But when a draft of the company's latest skin cream advert is leaked, the video goes viral for all the wrong reasons.

Hoard

Rafi and Ami’s younger sister, Bili, is coming round for dinner — and for the first time, she’s bringing her boyfriend, Brian. But then, without any warning, their mother Wura arrives. The evening takes a turn that throws up old and new questions, not least: Why doesn’t Wura know that Brian even exists?

Hoard is the story of one close-knit Nigerian family and old hurts that resurface over the course of one evening.

All Mod Cons

My Left Nut

Adapted into a major BBC Three series, this original coming-of-age comic monologue is the true story of a Belfast boy growing up with no father to guide him through – and a giant ball to weigh him down.

The Worst Witch

Mildred Hubble is an ordinary girl who found herself in an extraordinary place: a school for witches. Now in her final year at Miss Cackle’s Academy, accident prone Mildred and her fellow pupils are about to embark on their biggest adventure yet…

Oh My Nellie Bly

The musical tells the story of Nellie Bly, America’s first female journalist. In a profession dominated by men, in the late-19th century, Nellie was determined not only to join the profession but to become one of its brightest lights. By turns comic and tragic, Oh My Nellie Bly is the story of a brave pioneer who sacrificed love and happiness to achieve her ambition.

In Our Veins

Ali and Dahlia

A Palestinian-Israeli love story set against the backdrop of the construction of the West Bank wall.

Killymuck

A darkly comic play about class, poverty and the struggle to escape by award-winning playwright Kat Woods.

Cacophony

There’s me ‘out there’, in public, and there’s me in here. I know you think they’re not the same. But they’re not as far away as you think.

Created by the Almeida Young Company and written by Molly Taylor, Cacophony tells the story of a young woman’s rise to fame after speaking up at a protest outside a controversial rape trial.

Sparkplug

Inspired by autobiographical events, Sparkplug is an exploration of family, race, identity and love through the eyes of a white man who becomes the adoptive father, mother and best friend of a mixed-race child, David.

In Other Words

"In Other Words is humane, heartfelt, and often gruellingly sad." — The Stage

Rubber Ring

Rubber Ring is a coming of age comedy solo play about growing up queer in a rural community, learning to love yourself, love your roots and love without labels.

Funeral Flowers

Cuckoo

Texas Fried Chicken, abject misery and a one-way Ryanair ticket.

Everyone hates Iona. Everyone except Pingu. Fitting in is hard when one of you can’t shut up and your silent best friend wears a tuxedo to school every day. Sick of the ceaseless bullying and despair, Iona and Pingu decide to get the hell out of Dublin.

Lisa Carroll was nominated for Most Promising New Playwright with Cuckoo in the 2019 Off-West End Awards.

Cookies

Inspired by the true, heartfelt stories of students, COOKIES follows seven teenagers dealing with the effects of sexting, radicalisation, cyberbullying and our wider digital world...

Blink

This is the tale of Jonah, Sophie, and a fox called Scruffilitis. It's a love story. A dysfunctional, voyeuristic and darkly funny love story, but a love story all the same. This new play by the Bruntwood Playwriting Prize winner Phil Porter, is an exciting collaboration between Soho Theatre ‐ London's most vibrant venue for new writing, comedy and cabaret ‐ and internationally acclaimed Fringe First winners nabokov.

Lights Over Tesco Car Park

Basically, Robert reported lights over the Tesco car park. Then he told us an alien was coming to stay in his spare room. With the help of some historical abduction stories, a latex alien mask and a bucket of flying saucers, we’re working out whether to believe him.

Pickle Jar

It’s hard keeping it together when your whole life is falling apart. But the pressures of teaching, Tinder and outrageous Irish best mates are a lot to juggle, especially when you’re stumbling through the maze of trying to be a grown-up.

It explores the grey areas surrounding guilt, grief and shame and how we react to them in modern culture.

Stranger danger, heartbreak and piña coladas are on the syllabus in the hilarious debut play by Maddie Rice.

This show was developed with the help of Katie Pesskin and Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab.

Extinguished Things

“My neighbours leave their flat one morning but don’t return. Alton and Evie, married 40 years, no kids. I have their spare keys. I cannot resist.”

 Molly’s neighbours haven’t come home. The spare keys are in the lock. She’s over the threshold. 

In a house that will never be lived in the same way again, Molly looks under the rock of a marriage, a family, an existence andbrings to light what has been left in the dark. The voices of a past echoed in belongings. Items left behind. Extinguished things.

 A play that pieces together the story of two lives intertwined, Extinguished Things is a vivid, complex and moving look at what it means to spend your life with someone, and the nature of what you leave behind.

Kin

Two estranged sisters meet after twenty years. In a remote cottage over a single night they bury the hatchet. As their dying father lies in the room next door they’re forced to confront who they were and who they’ve become. When the only person they have left in common disappears, is their relationship worth saving?

The Cat's Mother

Ciara’s younger sister, Sinead, arrives at her door on Friday evening all set for what Ciara thinks will be a weekend of respite from caring for their mother, Eileen. However, unbeknownst to Ciara, Sinead has alternative ideas about how the weekend will pan out. And it is not what Ciara expected…

Nigel Slater's Toast

Based on the British Book Awards Biography of the Year, Toast is the story of Nigel Slater’s childhood, told through the tastes and smells he grew up with. From making the perfect sherry trifle to waging a war over cakes and from the pressured playground politics of sweets to the rigid rules of restaurant dining, this is a story of love, loss and…toast.

Miss Littlewood

Anti-establishment, visionary, rude and glorious, Joan Littlewood fired the imagination of a generation. Based on her life story, this musical charts the emotional highs and lows of Joan’s journey from the East End to the West End.

Lost Boy

A dark sequel to Peter Pan, Lost Boy, is an original British musical for a large cast of young adults.

Shebeen

It’s a hot and humid summer in 1958 St Ann’s, Nottingham. Tempers are flaring and Teddy Boys are on the march. Jamaican couple Pearl and George are helping Caribbean migrants to cut loose by hosting a forbidden party at their shebeen.

After Electra

It’s Virgie’s eighty-fourth birthday and she is making a big decision. She has not reckoned on her family and friends to thwart her plans.

God of Carnage

What happens when two sets of parents meet up to deal with the unruly behaviour of their children? Boys will be boys, but the adults are usually worse – much worse.

The Go-Between

 Leo Colston - a man haunted by the events of his past - vividly recalls his unwitting role acting as a go-between for the beautiful upper-class Marian and the tenant-farmer Ted.

3Women

3Women, the hilariously frank debut play from the award-winning comedian and writer Katy Brand, is a tale of female family bonding and buried resentment, it raises the question – what does it mean to be a woman in the twenty-first century?

This story places three generations of women and their own very different identities and opinions into one hotel suite for a single night of redemption. What will be revealed?

Bullet Hole

Young Londoner Cleo was given her ‘gift’ at age seven – except that ‘gift’ left her with type 3 Female Mutilation.

How can Cleo love her body, when her husband brutally sexually assaults her? Finding strength after this hideous act, Cleo resolves to go against her family’s wishes and seek reversal surgery. On her journey of healing, she’s sent to live with Aunt Winnie and meets Eve, a fellow FGM survivor who is instantly drawn to her. Will Cleo set an example and empower Eve to stand against this practice, or will she give in to family pressure and finally embrace Aunt Winnie’s deeply embedded traditional beliefs?

A fight for love, hope and acceptance in a culture where a ‘gift’ can bear the ultimate price.

Played by an all-female cast, this piece shines a light on a violent act nested in our society which is a transgression of human/women/children’s rights.

Electrolyte

Jessie’s sick of Leeds.

A city she thought she would never leave.

But the aimlessness of the people

she once believed she would always need

is suffocating.

Wondering whether she’s had enough,

in a dirty nightclub not too far off,

Jessie’s blinded by the light of Allie Touch,

a singer song-writer with a taste for big ambitions,

amongst some other stuff.

Feeling rough in the five in the morning sunlight,

Jessie’s sight is fixed on the path that Allie lights

And like a moth to a flame in the night,

She ignites.

 

Written in spoken word poetry and underscored entirely by original music created live, Electrolyte is an explosive piece of gig-theatre exploring grief, depression and psychosis. 

Electrolyte is the winner of the 2018 LET Award and its development was supported by The Watermill Theatre and Theatr Clwyd.

Haunting Julia

Julia Lukin was a musical prodigy who committed suicide 12 years ago. Her father Joe has never come to terms with her death, and in the Julia Larkin Centre For Performing Studies, he hopes to discover what happened by meeting with a psychic, Ken, and Julia's boyfriend, Andy, who was the last person to see her alive. The men meet in Julia's preserved bedroom and Joe reveals that he believes Julia is trying to contact him, haunting him in order to explain what happened. Between the three men, the story of Julia's life and death is gradually revealed - often at odds with what each man believes he knew. Julia had ultimately been unable to cope with the pressures of both her father and her overwhelming musical gift. Joe, of course, is unwilling to accept his love could ever have led to Julia's suicide, while Andy is still guilt-ridden about whether he could have prevented the tragedy had he not broken up with her that night. Ken attempts to contact Julia, but is revealed to be a hoax when he picks up Julia's teddy-bear to receive a message. The bear is a plant, the original long since lost. Ken reveals that he has waited many years to meet Joe and explain that he knew Julia; that she would come and find refuge in his and his wife's normal life and that, contrary to what may have been said, Julia told him at the end she loved her father. Ken is actually more aware of what is happening than the others credit him for though and as each of the men's feelings and recollections come to light, Ken believes Julia is poised to appear. A door onto what should be a brick wall blows open; impossibly the original corridor is present. Julia manifests herself, visible only to Joe, although the room is wrecked by an eerie wind and the bed begins to bleed. Joe understands what Julia has endured and that she is not at peace; he is haunting her. In a final moment of understanding, Joe lets his daughter go.

Mametz

A meditation on war, memory and the nature of time, Mametz, inspired by the writings of David Jones and Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, tells the story of the 38th Welsh Division’s attack on Mametz Wood during the Somme offensive of 1916.

Pride and Prejudice (Davies)

Adapted from Andrew Davies’ hit 1995 BBC TV series, this delightful comedy of manners revolves around the tumultuous relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, the lively and mischievous daughter of a gentleman from the country, and Darcy, a wealthy and proud lord.

Private Fears in Public Places

"Sir Alan's play is a tale of the misheard, the unspoken and the sadly misunderstood. absolute perfection, bringing warmth, humor, and sadness to Ayckbourn's exquisite dark comedy." - thetheatremania.com

"Quintessentially theatrical i…

Robin Hood (Dockrill)

A daring tale full of live music, laughter and bravery.

Robin Hood returns home to find the greedy Sheriff of Nottingham starving the local people of Sherwood Forest. Courageous, kind and headstrong, Robin can’t stand by and watch friends and family suffer. Robin, the most skilful archer in the land, vows to be brave and stand up for the local people. Join the fearless, witty hero and a host of lively friends as they set off on a mission to steal from the rich and give to the poor.

Roundelay

Five self-contained one-act plays, written to be performed in any order, all of which are connected through overlapping narratives and shared characters.

Sense and Sensibility (Whipday)

Sisters Marianne (a hopeless romantic) and Elinor (a stoic realist) experience the pitfalls of society, the generosity of new friends, and the passion of unexpected love in this funny and poignant adaptation of Jane Austen's exquisite early work.

Sideways

“A sublime variation on the buddy road movie, infusing the midlife crises of the two main protagonists with hope and poetry.” - New York Post 

Something To Say

Maddie has something important to confess to her husband David, but David is not in the mood to listen. Her desperate attempts to get his attention initially fail and when she finally gets through to him and makes her confession, David’s reaction is both unexpected and extreme.

Stitchers

"Nothing can go missing. No wool, no kits. Especially no needles."

Lady Anne Tree – one of the most aristocratic women in England – spent her life in prisons. As a visitor, she saw first-hand the aggression, low self-esteem, and high reoffending rates among the most hardened criminals.

Teddy

Elephant and Castle, London. 1956. Saturday night.

Teddy and Josie are about to hit the streets of London for a good time. Hair quiffed. Red lipstick. Dressed toe to head in the latest threads. So what if it’s pouring down, they’re totally skint, and someone wants them dead? A little trouble never stopped a Ted from having a good time. Desperate times call for rock ‘n’ roll.

An award-winning, punchy and lyrical ride through post-war London with an electrifying soundtrack of original songs performed by Johnny Valentine and the Broken Hearts, Teddy is the ultimate story of teenage rebellion and the birth of a new musical era.

The Father (Hampton/Zeller)

The Father, in this English translation by Christopher Hampton, was commissioned by the Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath and premiered in October 2014. The production transferred to the Tricycle Theatre, London, in May 2015. Florian Zeller's The Father was awarded the Moliere Award for Best Play 2014.

The Mother (Zeller)

Anne loved the time in her life when she prepared breakfast each morning for her two young children. Years later, spending hours alone, Anne convinces herself that her husband is having an affair. If only her son were to break up with his girlfriend. He would return home and come down for breakfast. She would put on her new red dress and they would go out.

Trial by Laughter

Following critical acclaim for The Wipers Times, Ian Hislop and Nick Newman have once again taken inspiration from real life events for their new play Trial by Laughter.
William Hone, the forgotten hero of free speech, was a bookseller, publisher and satirist.

In 1817, he stood trial for ‘impious blasphemy and seditious libel’. The only crime he had committed was to be funny. Worse than that he was funny by  parodying religious texts. And worst of all, he was funny about the despotic government and the libidinous monarchy.

A Watermill Theatre production.

Half Breed

Jazmin feels different.

She doesn’t want to stay in the village.
She doesn’t want to have a baby.
She doesn’t want to laugh at racist jokes in the local pub.
She’s got to get out.