Please note: These performances are taking place in our upstairs studio which is currently only accessible via stairs due to our lift being broken. If you have booked a ticket and require lift access, please contact our box office team who will be able to assist you.

TERRIFYING WOMEN V: GUTTED 

Three plays united on a theme of body horror. After hugely successful runs in 2021, 2022, 2023 and earlier this year at Cambridge Junction, Terrifying Women are back for the fifth instalment in our horror series. And this time, we’re exploring all things body horror. Expect tales of cracking bones, gushing blood, infestation, distortion and destruction of the human body …and cheese. 

Featuring three brand new pieces from Sampira Al-Fihri ,Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Abi Zakarian.

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

Morgan is a playwright and screenwriter. She was commissioned by The Globe to write Emilia which became a hit show in summer 2018 before then transferred to the West End in 2019, winning three Olivier awards, including Best Comedy or Entertainment. She is currently adapting Emilia for film. Other stage credits include Belongings and The Wasp, produced by the Hampstead Theatre and Trafalgar Studios. Belongings was shortlisted for The Charles Wintour Most Promising Playwright Award. Cake (The Other Palace, 2024) Typical Girls,(Sheffield Crucible, 2021); Mum (Plymouth Theatre Royal and Soho Theatre, 2021); and When the Long Trick’s Over (High Tide for New Wolsey Theatre and UK tour, 2022). She has written several comedy shows, pantomimes, community shows, immersive shows and Christmas shows; the most recent of which was A Christmas Carol for The Rose Theatre in Kingston in 2022.

Morgan adapted Josephine Hart’s Damage, produced as Obsession in April 2023 by Netflix. Her feature adaptation of The Wasp, starring Naomie Harris and Natalie Dormer and directed by Guillem Morales was released in September 2024.

She is currently under commission with Headlong, Lyric Hammersmith and BBC Studios.

Sampira

Sampira is a Nottingham born and raised, Birmingham based horror producer, writer and curator working in the horror genre across theatre and digital exhibitions and experiences. Her previous short pieces include: United Satans, Easy Breezy and Back to Back for Terrifying Women and is currently curating, writing and shaping Interdiction, a digital interactive theatre experience inspired by the video nasties and curating a digital exhibition that documents the history of the video nasties list. She is working on her first, Novella Resonance and Dugwell, a digital interactive analogue horror project.

Abi Zakarian

Abi is an award-winning British-Armenian playwright born and raised in Derby, now based in London. Her plays include: Age is Revolting, for The National Theatre Connections Festival, We Are Our Mountains, for Bush Theatre Protest Series; Lullaby, Shakespeare’s Globe; Found, produced by 45North for their Written on the Waves series of audio plays; Old Dough/When Two Armenians Meet, Futures Theatre for their Fully Amplified podcast series; A Thousand Yards at Southwark Playhouse and I Am Karyan Ophidian for the Sam Wanamaker Theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe, amongst others. Her play Fabric won a Scotsman Fringe First award, and she won the Vault Festival People’s Choice Award for I Have A Mouth And I Will Scream. She is a previous recipient of an MGCFutures Award bursary. Her plays Mountain Warfare & Worthy Women were finalist & long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting in 2021/22 & 2023/24 respectively. Abi created and co-runs the Armenian Creatives Network UK. She is a trustee board member of MGCFutures and a Creative Associate with Small Truth Theatre.

Abi’s play Welfare, about the pioneering Derbyshire Miners Holiday Camp, has just opened at Derby Theatre, and an international production of her play Fabric (as Hilos) has just opened in Mexico City. Her first short film: Pomegranate, is currently on the festival circuit and she is currently under commission with A.T.C and Futures Theatre.

Aoife Smyth

Aoife has jaws on the floor from her utterly spectacular performance.”
London Theatre Review for On Railton Road, Stage, 2023

Aoife Smyth (she/they), is a multi-hyphenate, award winning artist.

Aoife can be seen as Sara, in comedy horror feature Paintball Massacre, available on Amazon Prime, and has performed at theatres including The Bush, Royal Court Liverpool, and Southwark Playhouse to name a few.

Aoife sings professionally, both for The Blues Kitchen houseband, The Beekays and independently as a singer-songwriter, her debut Blues inspired album is set to be released in early 2024.

Aoife can also be seen as herself, as a waitress, on BAFTA winning show First Dates, currently being shown weekly on Channel 4.

Aoife is also a published writer; and is proudly queer, neurodivergent and from a low socio economic background – often engaging in panel discussions around these subjects; she has additionally created non profit organisation, Proper Classy, as a bid to support the dwindling community of lower class artists.

Susannah Van Der Berg

Susannah trained at Rose Bruford. Theatre includes: As You Like It (RSC), The Importance of Being Earnest (Colchester Mercury), Once (London Palladium and Tokyo Orb), Gypsy (Mill at Sonning), 101 Dalmatians (Regent’s Park), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (UK Tour), Annie (UK Tour), Oranges and Elephants (Hoxton Hall), Moonfleet, A Man of No Importance and Can’t Buy Me Love (all for Salisbury Playhouse), Alice in Winterland (Rose Theatre Kingston), Sister Act (UK and International Tour), Diana of Dobson’s (New Victoria, Newcastle), I Love Paris (Orange Tree, Richmond), Oliver!, Martin Guerre and Spend Spend Spend (all for Watermill Theatre, Newbury), Business as Usual (Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham), Sweeney Todd (English National Opera), The Sound of Music (Curve Theatre, Leicester), Fiddler on the Roof (UK Tour), The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Kensington Gardens), Chess (Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto), The Comedy of Errors (Stafford Shakespeare Festival), Guys and Dolls (Ipswich Wolsey), Animal Farm (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Amadeus (Wilton’s Music Hall).

Jessie Bedrossian

Jessie is a British-Armenian actor from London. Jessie has recently wrapped on Sam Mendes’ ‘THE FRANCHISE’ for HBO, and will shortly been seen playing Danny Dyer’s daughter in short film ‘ETERNAL WORDS OF A DEAD VERSE’. Further screen credits include ‘GRANTCHESTER’ (ITV) and ‘CASUALTY’ (BBC). Jessie is currently in post-production on her short film ‘POMEGRANATE’, which she starred in and executive produced, and explores an intergenerational Armenian family living in the UK facing the rippling effects of denied trauma. Recent theatre credits include ‘BURNT AT THE STAKE’ (Shakespeares Globe), ‘I AM KARYAN OPHIDIAN’ (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), and ‘PROTEST SERIES’ (Bush Theatre) which was streamed online.