What’s on

Sam Lake & Shelf

Fri 4 Feb • 8pm • Full £12 Concs £10 • Comedy

A double feature night of stand-up comedy from two brilliantly entertaining acts!

Sam Lake

Award Winning stand-up and nice young man Sam Lake presents an hour of hilarious and camp stand-up shaped into a heart-warming love story, talking about his life goals, and how he copes with succeeding and (more often) failing at them.

As well as starring in All4’s The Joy of Missing Out and Dave’s The Comedy Guide to Life, Sam has written for Newsjack and Mock The Week, and is the winner of Leicester Square Theatre’s New Comedian of the Year.

Shelf: Hair

Shelf are a musical comedy double act. Sort of. One of them is tone deaf, so technically they’re a musical single act and guest. In Hair, watch how Shelf overcome the odds to create musical comedy, slamming EDM and tell the story of one bizarrely life-changing haircut.

Over 1 million views on BBC Three; Musical Comedy Awards 2020 finalists; Funny Women 2019 finalists. Founders of The LOL Word.

“Clever and catchy” Bruce Dessau
“Cool and relevant” Skinny
“The talented twosome find belly laughs in heavyweight topics like mental health, sexuality and gender” Diva Magazine

Please note that there is a theatre restoration levy of £1.50 per ticket. This levy applies to all transactions, whether made in person at our Box Office, by post or by phone, for all payment types. Telephone bookings incur an additional £1.80 booking fee per transaction.

Be.

Wed 9 Feb • 8pm • Full £10 Concs £8 • Professional Theatre

Written by Gabrielle Finnegan
Presented by Greedy Pig Theatre Company

“Feminine? Masculine? Why can’t we just… be?”

The moment you were born, the doctor announced your gender, and the world put you in a box. And maybe that’s a comfortable box, and you’ll sit there happily for the rest of your life. But maybe it’s not… and what happens then? Be. follows three characters trying to break out of their boxes, as they discover what it means to be ‘Her’, ‘Him’ or ‘Them’, in a story intertwined with the authentic collective experiences of over 60 real people.

With enchanting music and provocative, poetic storytelling, Greedy Pig Theatre Company’s latest production gives a voice to those made restless by the constraints of gender within our communities, and asks why sometimes it’s so difficult to just… be.

Please note that Be. contains strong language and discusses themes of a sensitive nature, including discrimination, gender dysphoria, suicide, eating disorders, sex and mental health.

Please note that Be. contains strong language and discusses themes of a sensitive nature, including discrimination, gender dysphoria, eating disorders, sex and mental health.

Josh Berry & Rafe Hubris

Fri 11 & Sat 12 Feb • 8pm • Full £15 Concs £13 • Comedy

EXTRA DATE ADDED DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND!

Presented by RBM Comedy

Josh Berry: Who Does He Think He Is?

Josh Berry will mock people who went to slightly more prestigious private schools than him and whinge about his career for the best part of forty minutes. Josh will also probably do some impressions in this time even though he pretends to be artistically above all that stuff now.

‘Josh Berry? Fair play man, fair play’ James Acaster.
‘A remarkable new talent’ Rob Brydon.

Rafe Hubris: In Auditorium Cum Hubris

Rafe Hubris (BA, OXON) is, by his own admission, ‘the most promising 25 year old special advisor (SPAD) to the Conservative party and definitely the most classic’. Watch this supremely confident Eton and Oxford alumnus tell the story of the pandemic, which he helped the government organise ‘vary vary wall’, all whilst ‘un peu coké’. The show will be divided between Rafe’s ‘absolutely classic’ anecdotes about his time in government and his answers to your submitted questions. Rafe has also promised to secure all those who buy a ticket with a tasty PPE contract (PPE is incidentally what Rafe studied at Oxford University when he was a student there getting a degree from Oxford).

‘Enjoyable’ Dominic Maxwell, The Times
‘Brilliant’ Owen Jones

The Interview

Wed 16 – Sat 19 Feb • 8pm • Full £10 Concs £8 • Community Theatre

By Ralph Saunderson
Presented by Playing Up Theatre Company

When Mr New arrives for his job interview, he is disconcerted, to say the least, by the identical twins, Greta and Stern who meet him. Then there’s Mr Keane, Mr New’s identical twin brother. But just who is interviewing who? When Miss Stern demonstrates why her name matches her nature woe betide you if you are not in the photocopying room when she orders you to be!
An absurdist comedy of wordplay, concealed identity, sexual politics and power, with 2 actors playing 6 roles. You’ll laugh, you’ll groan, and you’ll update your CV.

“We enjoyed the absurdist qualities in the writing.  In a world where nepotism and ‘favours’ seem to be increasing, the politics of the job interview are well worth exploring.” Bristol Old Vic Literary Department on The Interview

The Greatest Magician

Wed 23 Feb • 8pm • Full £15 • Comedy

Presented by SHOWMAN Live

’There’s a moment you will remember for the rest of your life’ – Chortle Magazine

A dazzling new magic show – presented by the magician most famous for jamming the BBC switchboards as he correctly predicted the lottery. This astonishing, enigmatic, five star rated magic show will leave you aching from laughter and dizzy in disbelief. Directed by the late Paul Daniels, the enigmatic magic show comes to the stage for the first time – you’ll be transported to a jaw-dropping world of light-hearted hilarity, wonderment, and mystery.

★★★★★ “Leaves even the most seasoned magic go-ers dumbfounded” Fringe Magazine

Focusing on mind-bending feats of illusion, from making people forget their own names to transporting iPhones from the auditorium into blocks of ice – this sensational show is a sure sell-out and showing exclusively for a limited run. Presented by the host of BBC’s Trickster: Live. ‘The most anticipated magician in a generation, James Phelan is The Greatest Magician.

Battle Cry

Fri 25 Feb • 8pm • Full £14 Concs £12 • Professional Theatre

Written by Matt Fox
Presented by Madam Renard’s

When you’ve witnessed the worst things imaginable, the world can never be the same again. Battle Cry is a new one-hour solo piece based on the true story of a former soldier battling PTSD.
We soon realise that Adam’s life has never been easy, but is he too proud to ask for help? Would he rather try to cope in the only way he knows how? Or is it just too late?

Relevant, real and unflinching, Battle Cry reminds us that asking for help maybe the toughest battle of all.

Battle Cry is a play ‘for the head and heart’.

Alfie Brown: Sensitive Man

Sat 26 Feb • 8pm • Full £12 • Comedy

Does emotion help us make moral judgments?

In this brand-new show Alfie will address this question. He will address this question using jokes. There is a joke about Formula1 that isn’t actually about Formula1. There is a joke about shopping in a supermarket that is not really about shopping in a supermarket. There is a joke about parking tickets, and so on. These jokes will weave together to create something greater than the sum of their parts, answering a question about emotion and its complicated relationship to morality. You can disagree, but you must laugh.

A note from Alfie…

“I refute that I am saying things to plainly and wilfully disrupt social progress. I am not. I might seem smug, I know, apologies, and I am often misunderstood. So at this particular point in the unfolding history of meaning, intention, signs and signifiers, I am sometimes going to tell you what I fucking mean.”

‘It is tricky to write 350 sensible words when you come out of a show simply thinking ‘Wow! F**k! Wow!’ ★★★★★ The Scotsman

“Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate” ★★★★★ Lorem ipsum

Nhair

Wed 2 Mar • 8pm • Full £12 Concs £10 • Professional Theatre

Performed, written and produced by Conny Hancock
Including voice overs from Jodie Paget, Jessie Pardoe and Lorin Henderson
Dramaturgy by Mich Sanderson and Jodie Paget
Lighting design by Alex Latham

Conny can’t get her garden to grow. She’s tried everything and honestly? It’s beginning to piss her off. On top of that, she’s trying to navigate tricky love interests, frustrating doctor appointments, and a new career.

Oh. And she’s also really hairy.

Conny Hancock presents a light-hearted one-woman show touching on her lived experience with having polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Nhair is a hilarious, empowering and brutally honest ode to self-love, exploring what it’s like to not quite fit into the mould of the stereotypical woman.

Expect laughs, cries and awful ukulele playing.

“Nhair is a joy to watch” ★★★★ Alexandra Ricou

Nhair is supported by Verity, a UK charity for those with PCOS, as well as having previously received support from Hall for Cornwall, Bath Spa Showcase Enterprise Fund, Greedy Pig Theatre Company, IntoBodmin, Plymouth Conservatoire and Bath Spa Productions. Nhair was originally created in 2019 as a part of Theatre Royal Plymouth’s IDEASLab and has since been developed to this fully formed piece.

Greenhouse

Thu 3 Mar • 7:30pm • Full £10 • Professional Theatre

Presented by Apricity Theatre

‘Seeds of faith are always with us; sometimes it takes a crisis to nourish and encourage their growth’ – Susan L. Taylor
This past year the arts have not been dormant. We’ve been growing. Ideas have been seeded in the dark, and now Apricity invite you to join us as we watch them bloom. We’re having a party, a scratch night bringing together brand new works in progress by some of the Southwest’s most exciting emerging artists with… well, you.

We’ll bring the atmosphere, the entertainment, and the accidentally vegan party rings. You bring you.

★★★★★ ‘unlike anything we have experienced’ 365 Bristol on Between the Armies
★★★★ ‘funny, self-critical, brutal and paradoxical’ Confessions of a Five Foot Two Actress on Open Mic

The Invisible Woman

Sat 5 Mar • 8pm • Full £16 Concs £12 • Professional Theatre

Written by Charlotte Palmer
Presented by CMP Productions

After decades in the spotlight Charlotte Palmer is now invisible.
For years all eyes were on her as she appeared in everything from Eastenders, Coronation St and Prime Suspect 1973 to Ab Fab, The Vicar of Dibley and Extras. But one day she noticed that she was no longer noticed. As far as the world was concerned, it seemed that Charlotte had disappeared.

What had Charlotte done to bring this about? Had she committed a crime? Misused a pronoun on social media? Flouted a social convention making her persona non grata? NO.
She had the nerve to turn 50.
60,000 women turn 50 worldwide every day. Surely Charlotte can’t be the only one who feels invisible?

The Invisible Woman is an hilarious and moving, sometimes angry exploration of women over 50 who find themselves overlooked, ignored, disregarded, in short INVISIBLE in all areas of life.
Come and see Charlotte Palmer in this new one woman show. By the end, you might even be able to see her.