How do we speak candidly to our friends in a landscape of censorship? 

Winter Solstice is a play about five friends, either very distant or completely new to one another, inauthentically celebrating the [redacted] holiday of Shab-e Yalda in the [redacted] desert. Marking the longest night of the year, the disjointed group attempts to bond, occasionally distracted by the Ursid meteor shower. A [redacted] between Ameera and Diana unravels, marked by [redacted], undesired return, an identity crisis, and interrupted with bad poetry. Shooting stars become the vehicle to start, stop, and censor the trajectory of their stories, and the shimmering sky above carries them through reckonings and answers — or maybe their lack thereof. 

14+

Content Warnings: Explicit Language

A record player spinning Fontaines DC on vinyl. A well-thumbed copy of a Penguin classic on his bedside table. Tom is, in many ways, that guy. But after a breakdown, induced by the meaninglessness of his corporate job, the casual cruelty of the East London dating scene and an endless karmic cycle of small plates, Tom has moved to Margate to lead a slower life. 

Tom is on a search to find meaning outside of the life he’s been told by everyone he’s meant to lead. He’s trying to enjoy the simple things in life. Pink sunsets over the beach. A full packet of rizlas. Chips swimming in vinegar. Fuck it, maybe even a cheeky Calippo.  

But he soon realises living life slowly is harder than he thought. Watching the waves come in and out, Tom is forced to for the first time confront his own thoughts and desires. What does he want? And who is he without everything that previously defined him?  

Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”, this poem-play is a study of masculinity and loneliness. 

14+

Content Warnings: Themes of depression and misogyny.  

A crew of documentary filmmakers convince timid recluse, Sam, to let them film him for a “quick” behavioural sciences study.

Months later, they’re still there. In fact, they’ve moved in.

With a large pay out and some careful persuasion, Sam can’t help but play the part, until the only thing left of him is footage.

Part body thriller; part satire; part live cinema, Act Natural is a frenetically absurd and offbeat portrait of the self.

14+

Anti-racism activist Enkhtuya is a strong advocate for Inner Mongolian culture, and yet she resists the urge to return to her mother’s homeland. Skye, unemployed and addicted to playing video games, finds everything funny, even when it’s degrading to her. Despite having an outwardly successful and promising career in publishing, Quinn grapples with the devastating impact of her traumatic childhood. Thaniya, who works as an administrator during the week and lives riotously for the weekends, warily enters into a ‘casual’ situationship with Ayad, a troubled young man battling his own demons. 

This close-knit friendship group made up of Central and North Asian women have had each others’ backs since forever. Together, they put the world to rights and blaze through London like the city belongs to them. But as each woman succumbs to their personal demons, will their friendships survive? 

murmurs is a bracing yet radiant new play about a close-knit friendship group of Central and North Asian women whose bonds are tested when they start experiencing intertwined symptoms of psychosis. A surrealist mixture of noughties sitcom ‘Sex and the City’ and Sarah Kane’s play ‘4:48 Psychosis’, murmurs is in equal parts funny, confrontational, piercing and transcendent. 

18+

Content Warnings: sexual trauma, sexual abuse, genocide, racism, child abuse, sexual assault, suicide, self harm and mental illness.

When Ella-May returns to her childhood home, she’s braced for a chilly reunion with her grieving mother. Not a mysterious stranger in the house. But by the time she pieces it all together, it might already be too late… Part fairytale, part folk horror, part f*cked-up kitchen sink drama.

INHERITANCE BADDIE is the new play from award-winning writer Adam Foster.

boobytrapped is a bodyswap romcom by award-winning writer Freddie Haberfellner, produced by No Tits Theatre.

Simon, a trans man, and Kevin, a cis man, meet in a gay club and are immediately drawn to each other, but their hookup is derailed when Kevin realises Simon is trans. Just before the situation turns really ugly, a little bit of magic traps them in each other’s bodies. Despite their differences, they then have to work together to figure out a way to swap back. Through this journey, they learn how their own insecurities and prejudices have been keeping them caged, and take a step towards accepting themselves and thereby each other. boobytrapped explores what it means to be a man in our current society, how we can show up better for each other and how our bodies influence who we become.

18+

Content Warnings: Transphobia, sexual themes, partial nudity, physical violence

Based on true events, Normal Men explores the rollercoaster career of disgraced former children’s TV presenter Mark Barker. Accompanied by his puppet mascot (Turtle), Mark revisits his career highs and lows via a series of interviews and flashbacks. Normal Men is based on the careers of Richard Bacon and Mark Speight, two beloved CBBC presenters.

This is a new play by Sam Macgregor and is currently in it’s development stages. Normal Men’s story follows the struggles with fame and the temptations into recreational drug and alcohol use and how this ultimately leads to the downfall of star sensation presenter Mark Barker. This play will have nostalgic themes throughout as it is set in the early 2000’s.

This is Sam Macgregor’s third play, after having two of his previous shows performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Normal Men is directed by multi-disciplinary performer Carlos Sandin. Sandins last show, Pull My Goldfinger, ran at this summers Edinburgh Fringe to sell out shows and rave reviews.

14+

Content Warnings: References to substance and alcohol abuse, strong language

When Amelia, a sparky and confident dancer on a luxury cruise ship, meets Sam, a quietly witty, self-proclaimed climate activist, they each twist the truth in a bid to impress. Their chemistry is undeniable, and it seems like the beginning of a perfect holiday romance… until they realise they share more than just attraction: both are in an open relationship with the same person.

Reeling from the discovery and determined to prove themselves to each other, and their absent partner, Amelia and Sam join forces in a daring act of eco-sabotage, in the hopes of exposing the cruise ship’s environmental impact. As Sam and Amelia become increasingly entangled in their activism and each other, the very real-world consequences of their actions close in. With the risks increasing, something is bound to explode – will it be the boat, their relationships, or their lives?

Cruising is a sexy, sizzling exploration of civil disobedience, climate anxiety, and the tangled ethics of polyamory and protest. Beneath its warm, flirtatious surface, Cruising sparks urgent conversations about responsibility and resistance – asking who must make sacrifices, both in love and in the face of a burning planet.

16+

Content Warnings: swearing, sexual references 

I reckon they’re all grey. Little grey men. 

Not even claws and teeth and scary things and detachable jaws just clever. 

She hadn’t even finished her A Levels. 

Elinor and Andy meet up every Thursday night in the dingy allotment by the train tracks to look for UFOs. They’re a pair of queer, geeky teenagers, still reeling from the loss of their best mate, Jelly, who disappeared a year ago after a night at their town’s sole gay club. Together, Elinor and Andy come up with a quiet, shared conspiracy theory: that Jelly wasn’t kidnapped or murdered or whatever else people think… she was abducted by aliens. This comfortable discomfort is broken by the sudden appearance of Wren, Andy’s crush, who asks a few too many questions for Elinor’s liking. As the pair straddle between finishing their A Levels, navigating their grief, and preventing a potential threat to the human race, they begin to wonder whether an alien abduction would feel more like a rescue. 

Unidentified Objects explores the relationship between trauma and belief, how marginalised communities respond to hate crime, and what would happen if queer groups adopted the cultish conspiracy thinking of the far right. 

15+

Content Warnings: Mentions of homophobia, hate crime, kidnapping/abduction, death. Grief and loss depicted. 

Glory is a listless Black woman in her 20s, filling her time with drugs and drinking and meaningless sex with tattooed White women, because changing her habits would take a level of energy just beyond her depressive reach. The only thing that really thrills her is Cassie, but Glory can’t tell whether she wants to fuck Cassie or consume and destroy her; when she discovers that she can do both, and that doing both gives her the power to move through the world in a way she’s never been afforded, she sets off on a journey of riotous vengeance through cannibalism.

Developed on the 2024 Plays from ur notes app writers’ group at the Royal Court, Hunger is a new play by Natasha Wright exploring privilege and power through a queer horror lens. This reading, directed by Mumba Dodwell (mumbadodwell.com) and featuring Sumah Ebele, is an opportunity to hear the latest draft aloud and garner feedback with an eye towards further developing the live art elements of the play.

18+

Content Warnings: Graphic language and descriptions of sexual violence

Lily Bevan’s play Hen was initially commissioned as part of The Channel 4/Sonia Friedman playwrighting scheme and was then developed as part of the new writing programme at The Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. 

Hen is a drama-comedy about seven people who have come together for a hen party, in a cottage on the slopes of a Welsh mountain, during an unforgiving storm.  

A no-holds-barred ensemble play in which the typical bride’s narrative is pushed aside by other forces: friendship, ambition, loyalty, mental and physical health, family, myth and too many cock balloons. 

This reading of ‘HEN’ is co-produced by Questing Beast and Alice Robinson and will be performed by Catrin Aaron (Romeo & Julie/NT, All’s Well/Sam Wanamaker), Lily Bevan (Voyage Round My Father/Donmar, As You Like It/Globe), Iwan Davies (The Corn Is Green/NT), Mark Edel-Hunt (Leopoldstadt/Wyndham’s, Breaking the Code/Oxford Playhouse). Mariah Gale (The Great/Hulu, I May Destroy You/BBC), Sarah Woodward (Professor T/ITV, Queens of Mystery/Acorn TV) and Charity Wakefield (The Great/Hulu, Wolf Hall/BBC).

Lily’s previous plays include Zoo (Assembly, Theatre 503 / Nick Hern Books) “A brilliant play” The Times, The French Welcome (Globe Theatre), Talking to Strangers & Dances with Dogs (co-written with Sally Phillips, Leicester Square Theatre/Orange Tree/Soho Theatre & BBC Radio 4) “The funniest thing in years” The Telegraph, Stephen & The Sexy Partridge (co-written with Finnian O Neill for Trafalgar Studios, Time Out, Christmas Pick), Café Red (Trafalgar Studios) and screenplay The Guide (co-written with Emma Thompson). 

16+

Content Warnings: Adult language

Follow Stephen’s journey navigating Queerness in the early 1900s in this original staging of Hall’s pioneering novel, credited as one of the earliest depictions of a lesbian relationships, a distinction that would lead to its ban. Scandalous! 

In this story, Stephen must delve into the Queer landscapes of the countryside (and later, the big cities) with little guidance, and make her own place in the world as a gender-non-conforming figure in a turbulent Europe. It’s difficult, but is there anything that lesbians can’t do?  

This adaptation seeks to bring the author’s beautiful writing and timeless experience of queerness onto the contemporary stage, shed light on a forgotten story, and bring history into our conversation about trans rights with an exceptional story about bravery. 

14+ 

Content Warnings: Suicide, homophobia, racism, sexism, grief 

“The only thing holding you back is you, they say, they say, they do”  

 Since their Mum ran away, Mills and Sonny live their life surviving. Whether it’s selling DVD’s round the back of Sainsbury’s, nicking goods from flea markets  or getting involved with a dodgy insurance scheme from their Dad, there’s always a new idea, a new opportunity on the horizon to make a quick quid.  

When they’re evicted from their flat, their world is usurped once again. That is, until their Dad offers the opportunity of a lifetime, running a second-hand furniture shop and living in it too.  

In the midst of the shop’s success, a dark secret emerges, and their future is once again plunged into uncertainty… 

The rubble is free is a brand-new experimental drama from multi-award-winning playwright Georgie Bailey, written under development with the Omnibus Theatre through the Foyle Commission scheme.  

15+

Content Warnings: Strong language, violence, gambling  

The Trace of the Forgotten is a multimedia and sensorial performance that takes us on a deeply emotional journey through the fractured mind of Jose, a Colombian journalist who has the onset of dementia. Fearing the loss of his memories, he asks his granddaughter Emilia to help him transcribe his life before it fades completely.His mind will take us to crucial moments in his life as he re-experiences historical events, forbidden loves and a search for identity in a life in exile. The play will make us feel time slipping away and the exponential loss of Jose’s memory.

15+

Content Warnings: Migration topics (exile, Political asylum due to violence)

Niamh’s life in London isn’t exactly how she dreamed it would be. Her job sucks, her flat is horrible, and her best friends all seem to be leaving her behind. So, when Niamh accidentally discovers she can time travel into her memories, it seems like the perfect chance to fix her past regrets and live the life she’s always wanted. But fixing the past isn’t easy, and Niamh soon learns there are some things you cannot change. In order to fix her future, Niamh must address the darkness in her past, and learn to embrace her present.  

Fig Tree is a dark, funny, and hopeful exploration of grief, regret and second chances, and the first full length theatrical work from Digital Broadcast Award-winning writer Nic O’Keeffe (Sparklers, BBCiPlayer; Wyrm, Live Theatre Newcastle). This reading presents the first act of the play in development.

14+

Content Warnings: Themes of grief, death and mental health issues. Contains strong language and sexual references, as well as mild references to recreational drug use and the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new theatrical adaptation by Alice Eve, based on the novel by Alice Broadway. 

There are no secrets in Saintstone – every action, every choice, is marked on your skin for all to see. 

Everyone that has lived an honest life is immortalised by having their tattoos turned into a book. Their skin is preserved, and their stories are handed down through generations. 

When Leora’s father dies, she is determined to see him remembered forever. 

But when she discovers that his ink has been edited and his book is incomplete, she wonders whether she ever knew him at all. As grief and deceit unravel her world, Leora begins to question whether her beliefs are anything more than skin-deep. 

Alice Broadway’s Young Adult novel Ink was one of the bestselling UKYA novels of 2017, and was shortlisted for several awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. 

Alice Eve is a theatre maker, producer, and facilitator with an MA from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Her professional credits span five years and include national tours, new writing, disabled-led projects, theatre-in-education, and – most recently – participation work at the Olivier-Award-winning Almeida Theatre. Her creative practice has been supported by Tall Stories and the Mercury Theatre, where she is currently one of five directors being mentored as part of the Mercury Creatives programme. 

Ink is Alice Eve’s professional debut as a writer/director

12+

Content Warnings: Content related to grief, death, and dying. 

Ball Pit is a dark, psychological drama that dissects the corrosive relationship between celebrity, nostalgia, and predation. The play centers on Jamie, a flamboyant, manipulative, and alcoholic former children’ s television host, who is attempting a precarious comeback with a new, high-profile talk show. Jamie is utterly dependent on his highly devoted young assistant, B e n, who manages every aspect of his chaotic life.

Ben, however, is not just an employee; he is a former obsessive fan of Jamie’ s iconic children’s game show, The Jamie and Clive Show, where children would compete in a giant ball pit.

As the play unfolds, the power dynamic between the two men shifts drastically. Ben begins to assert control, meticulously setting up the physical set of Jamie’s old ball pit on stage. In the explosive final act, Ben reveals that his devotion is a facade for long-simmering revenge. He orchestrates a public ambush, exposing Jamie’s pattern of predatory behaviour—specifically, how he groomed hundreds of young boys by promising them jobs in the industry. The ball pit, once a symbol of childhood joy and Jamie’ s reign of control, becomes the literal site of his professional and personal destruction. Ben—who reveals he was one of Jamie’s victims—forces Jamie to face the truth he tried to bury, completing a calculated act of justice on live television.

15+

Content Warnings: Strong language, references to alcoholism and child grooming.

Success, sex work and sisterhood.

Meet the Girls on Top: a collective spanning pioneers of extreme sexual stunts, dominatrixes, teenage fetishists, ebony goddesses…and a celebrity sauntering in on meticulously photographed feet. All having risen to fame on The Platform, these five sexual success stories now come together for their first celebratory shoot. But when their party is crashed by 1980s radical-feminist Andrea Dworkin, resurrected for this ceremonious occasion, disorder ensues.

Inspired by Caryl Churchill’s landmark play Top Girls, Girls On Top asks the age-old question: can women ever be empowered under patriarchy? From multi-award winning new writer Sadie Pearson, this rehearsed reading will stage Act 1 – the surrealist live stream – for the very first time.

Sadie’s work has been recognised by: the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, BBC Voices Scheme, Alpine Fellowship, Ilfeld Prize, Riverside Studios Best Writing Prize, Popcorn Award (x BBC) and Wickham Theatre’s 75th Anniversary Prize. Through “womxn-led powerhouse” Full Frontal Theatre, along with director Hen Ryan and producer Grace Shropshire, her plays have received UK wide critical acclaim on stages such as Arcola Theatre, Edinburgh’s Gilded Balloon and The Shakespeare North Playhouse.

16+

Content Warnings: Discussions of pornography, sex, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. Descriptions of sexually charged activity and violence against women.

In the office of a major tech contractor in Dublin, a team of four trawl through the depths of social media. 

So far, Georgia has been coping. But when their colleague, Josh, fails to return to work in mysterious circumstances, Georgia is set on a path of discovery that forces her to confront everything about her work that haunts her.  

Can Georgia face the reality of her job without losing herself in the process? And can she find a way to help her colleagues, Chloe, Leon, and Damian find their way out of the darkness? Or do her colleagues have their own dark secrets that are too great to be overcome? 

Tech-thriller meets love story, The Moderators confronts the experience of overwhelm and powerlessness that characterises life in the age of hyper-capitalism and rising technofascism, whilst also creating space for hope.

18+

Content Warnings: Discussion of suicide, discussion of depression, discussion of child sexual abuse material, discussion of extreme violence, passing reference to extreme pornography including rape, passing reference to hate speech 

A free workshop, led by playwright Georgie Bailey, as a group you’ll begin to examine familiar spaces and what ideas and stories they can inspire and delve into how settings can be represented onstage. You will also explore the theatrical space, looking at how actors can interact with audience, and what is held in the space between performance and viewership. 

Led by playwright and dramaturg Sam Pout, we will explore the agency of your writing and consider its dramaturgical questions. We’ll also have a look at different art forms to draw inspiration from, so that we can better understand how to go about generating an active experience for our audiences. People coming to this workshop must bring headphones and a device they can listen to music on. 

A free workshop for writers, led by playwright and theorist Dan Rebellato, exploring how to go about Building a Play. Writers are invited to bring an idea for a play, even the very beginning or spark of an idea. It can be a sentence, image, an event, a topic, literally anything! Dan will share exercises and skills on how to develop that idea into something writable. This is a free workshop for writers with any experience.

So you’ve written your play and now you’re ready to put it on stage. How do you pitch your play to programmers? How do you convince audiences that it’s worth buying a ticket? Join Omnibus Theatre’s Project Coordinator and the National Theatre’s Senior Digital Editor to find out how to pitch your play and find your digital footprint.  Throughout the workshop, they’ll lead you through finding your brand voice, audience patterns and good marketing on a budget.