Current Shows
Smile Club
In line with the latest government advice, we’ve brought our national tour of Smile Club to a close. If you have pre-booked for the show, please do check with the ticket source for information.
Thank you to our creative team for your incredible work on Smile Club, we’re proud of you. To our colleagues in the arts, our audiences, community hosts and neighbours, our friends – in these unprecidented times we stand with you and send love. Keep safe. See you again soon.
Written by Andrea Heaton & Adam Z. Robinson
Directed by Rod Dixon
Performed by Andrea Heaton
Come on love, cheer up, it might never happen.
Welcome to Smile Club. Life’s so much better when you smile. Everyone knows that. So go on – give us a smile.
Meet Lisa, a Smile Club attendee. Lisa’s been through it all and she now knows – beyond a shadow of a doubt – that nobody likes a girl who makes a fuss; nobody likes a girl who can’t take a joke. She knows too, that life is simpler when you let things go. And she certainly has. All of it.
Join Lisa as she presents the perks and rewards of being a Smile Club Member. Hear about her descent into dejection, rage, and bloody violence, before her remarkable transformation into the smiley, well-adjusted human you see before you today.
Set in a dystopian world in which a government drive exists to tame and prune unruly women deemed unable to fit into society, Smile Club is a darkly comic and searingly satirical new one woman show from writer/performer Andrea Heaton (Fidget Theatre) and writer Adam Z. Robinson (Shivers, The Book of Darkness and Light), directed by Red Ladder Theatre Company’s Rod Dixon (Mother Courage and Her Children, The Parting Glass).
Read the latest 4 star review in The Guardian here
and a 4 star review on The Reviews Hub here
‘A very clever fusion of satire and science fiction with the dark humour of Black Mirror and the dystopian horror of The Handmaid’s Tale.’ Audience Member on work-in-progress
‘Hugely relevant, accessible, exciting – hairs standing up on the back of my neck moments!’ Audience Member on work-in-progress
Follow the show on Twitter @smileclubshow & Instagram @smileclubshow #smileclub
Recommended for ages 12+ (strong language, themes of violence, flickering lights and haze). Running time: 80 minutes (approx.; no interval). Some performances may include a post-show Q&A (question and answer) session with the cast and/or creative team.
INFO/TICKETS
GALLERY
The Damned United
Down the stairs… Along the corridor… Round the corner… Into the dressing room… HIS dressing room. Hateful, hateful place. Spiteful, spiteful place. Dirty, dirty Leeds.
1974. Brian Clough, the enfant terrible of British football, tries to redeem his managerial career and reputation by winning the European Cup with his new team: Leeds United. The team he has openly despised for years, the team he hates and which hates him. Don Revie’s Leeds.
Originally co-produced with the Leeds Playhouse, The Damned United takes you inside the tortured mind of a genius slamming up against his limits, and brings to life the beauty and brutality of football, the working man’s ballet.
‘a cracking piece of theatre’ 4* review from British Theatre
‘swift, compact and bullishly to the point’ 5* review from Entertainment Focus
‘Yes, this a play about football, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a tribute to an era-defining genius, a portrait of a man terminally wrapped-up in his own bravado, a study of loyalty and friendship under pressure…’ 4* Review in The Stage
By Anders Lustgarten
Adapted from the novel by David Peace
Directed by Red Ladder’s Artistic Director Rod Dixon
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GALLERY
Wrong ‘Un
February 1918, and after several decades of protest and four years of bloody war Parliament is poised to grant what the suffragettes have demanded and fought for – votes for all women. After years of direct action, arrest, imprisonment and force-feeding, it seems their time has come.
Wrong ‘Un tells of the adventures of Annie Wilde, a Lancashire mill-girl galvanised by a rousing mixture of injustice, conviction, self-doubt and fear on her journey from schoolroom to prison cell and beyond.
A one-woman musical written by Boff Whalley, directed by Red Ladder’s Artistic Director Rod Dixon.
Wrong ‘Un has toured for five years – the longest tour in the history of the company. The show has played a wide range of spaces: theatre studios, pubs, village halls, trade union conferences, and even a tent at Shambala Festival. It is still in demand. This one woman show is a musical with no musicians – the performer takes on five different roles and sings all the songs unaccompanied! Kathleen Yore (of Odd Doll Puppetry) has taken on the challenging role of Annie Wilde which was originally written with and for Ella Harris.
“…warm, likable and subversive… One hundred years on, the suffragette movement is still relevant.” The Stage
“…a sharp and intelligent musical” The Guardian
A full education pack is available to accompany this show, download it here.
INFO/TICKETS
GALLERY
