Spring 2019 at CPT

spring 2019

The Cult of K*nzo Š Paula Varjack

cptheatre.co.uk

A big shopping trip. A bigger birthday.

And the biggest exhumation of bodies in European history...

Celebrating 25 years of groundbreaking performance.

Welcome to Camden People’s Theatre.

It’s 2019 – a cool quarter-century since Camden People’s Theatre first pitched up on the corner of Drummond Street and Hampstead Road.

And we’ve got festivals – including Sprint, our annual fiesta of leftfield performance from the brightest new artists we can Do we feel old? Not a bit of it. As our Spring 2019 find; and ‘Calm Down, Dear’, our wellprogramme (this one, clutched in your eager hands) loved carnival of innovative feminist theatre. (Programme announced in the goes to show, we’re in the prime of life. Energetic and engaged. Teeming with new ideas. Grownups New Year.) Then in May, we launch ‘The Camden Roar’, marking our 25th birthday when we have to be, big kids when we don’t. with three weeks of Camden stories, told Among the anniversary delights on show, don’t by, with and for local people. It’s headlined miss our two all-new Home Run commissions,

by Human Jam, CPT’s playful – and Jennifer Tang’s intimate take on British-Chinese ghostly – docu-theatre event about the identity, Ghost Girl // Gwei Mui 鬼妹, and Lanre exhumation of St James’ Gardens and Malaolu’s Elephant in the Room – a tour de force the redevelopment of our west Euston on black male mental health. Look out too for Paula neighbourhood.

Varjack’s CPT-commissioned The Cult of K*nzo, about fashion and consumerism; Claire Gaydon’s Come and join the party.

Edinburgh hit, the part-live, part-online, all-brilliant We’d love to see you.

See-Through; and new work from Sh!t Theatre, Team CPT xxx Beats & Elements, Nouveau Riche and more.

I R A N © Ryan O’Shea

Double Bills:

Book tickets for two shows on the same night for just £16.

Visit our website for more details.

Heather and Harry © Stumble Trip Theatre

The Smoke

Stumble Trip Theatre

Faces, Masks

Heather and Harry

Tue 8 Jan, 7pm

Tue 15 - Wed 16 Jan, 9pm

A one-off interactive performance devised in two days by a team led by Danish artist Nina Runa Essendrop. Come to explore, watch and play. Make faces. Put on masks. Perform yourself! £8/£6 concs.

Max Wilkinson

Tue 15 - Sat 19 Jan, 7.15pm

Ghost Fruit

Don’t Miss

Season Pass:

★★★★★-Broadway Baby ★★★★-Three Weeks

“Outstanding” -Fringe Review £12/£10 concs.

Ghost Fruit is an outrageous romp across time and space.

It pokes fun at a culture obsessed with the past, weaving elements of cabaret, comedy, time and place. Why do we look back and what are we looking for?

A man thinks he’s Franz Kafka living in the 1920s. But he’ s not. He’s from Somerset. As his dream becomes a nightmare he slips between different times and bodies…

He’s partying with the ghost of Elizabeth Taylor. He’s a young lady with a vintage, dead dog on her hands. He’s a cop in an American town with no crime, death or dirt until one day someone bursts into flames…And finally he’s back in Prague to confront the truth and embrace the present. £12/£10 concs.

Combining clown, cabaret, theatre and mime Heather and Harry is a silly unpicking of what it means to be human... and in LOVE. Fresh from critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Gur Arie Piepskovitz

Thu 17 - Sat 19 Jan, 9pm

Re:Visions

Five different personas, each with their own monstrous ego, attempt to mimic reality, enhance it, and sometimes override it completely. Re:Visions is a satirical, meta-theatrical play that investigates whether you can alter reality by perceiving it differently. £12/£10 concs.

Book 3 or more shows as part of our Spring Season and receive a 10% discount. Book 5 or more and receive a 20% discount!

(Offer only valid on full price and concession tickets and must be booked at the same time.)

Ghost Girl // Gwei Mui 鬼妹 © Jennifer Tang

Presented by CPT and Counterpoints Arts.

Sundays, 7pm: 20 January 24 February 14 April 19 May 23 June

No Direction Home stand up

In 2018, CPT, Counterpoints Arts and award-winning comedian Tom Parry (Pappy’s; Badults; The Lost Disc) launched the No Direction Home Stand Up programme – a unique new course for aspiring comics from refugee and migrant backgrounds. After the smash-hit success of its debut gig, come join us for more unexpected laughs from our talented team – plus a Very Special Guest standup at each event.

“Really loved it. I never laughed like this in a while” - Audience Feedback £12/£10 concs.

Jennifer Tang

Don’t Miss

Tue 22 - Sat 9 Feb, 7.15pm

Ghost Girl // Gwei Mui 鬼妹

On a hot, clammy, muggy day in October In a Chinese takeaway restaurant A decision was made: A woman was going to take another woman’s baby.

She thought she was getting a chow mein and instead she got a baby.

Six months later From the top floor of a hospital Wrapped in blankets and snuggled away A woman called Janice and a man called Phil Took home a baby girl.

Me. Based on the personal story of theatre-maker Jennifer Tang, who was born to Cantonese parents but raised by a white British family, this touching and highly theatrical new show asks what it really means to be British and Chinese in contemporary England, and how family, love and belonging all shape who and what we are. £12/£10 concs.

Commissioned by Camden People’s Theatre and supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Presented in partnership with CAN Festival 2019.*

Love Songs © Alissa Cooper

Alissa Anne Jeun Yi

Tue 22 - Sat 26 Jan, 9pm

Don’t Miss

Love Songs

Mixing get-on-the-dance-floor music, rap and spoken word, Love Songs explores the personal and political puzzles of our love lives through the autobiographical poems of a hopeless romantic.

It is classic tale of classroom crushes and awkward bedroom encounters – a cautionary guidebook on how to navigate the millennial dating scene – and a glimpse under the covers at our deepest desires and the allconsuming fear of ending up alone.

“Genuinely moving…with a surprising amount of joy and a real call to action.” -The Guardian “(A) sweet, celebratory show” with “quiet, gut-churning power.” -The Scotsman £12/£10 concs.

Supported by CPT. Presented in partnership with CAN Festival 2019.*

*Chinese Arts Now Festival Runs from 19 January – 2 February 2019, and celebrates the work of the best Chinese heritage artists working in the UK today, across theatre, music, live art, dance, film and more. chineseartsnow.org.uk

BÉZNĂ Theatre

Mon 28 Jan, 6.15pm

ILLEGALISED

A rehearsed reading of a protest-theatre piece journeying through the Home Office’s human rights abuses against ‘the other’ and the profit made from the illegalisation of human beings. £8 [work in progress]

Freya Bardell

Mon 28 - Tue 29 Jan, 9pm

Twenty Something

Your twenties are meant to be the best years of your life. Or so everybody keeps saying.

But quite frankly, this isn’t what Freya had in mind. A comic look at a millennial trying to navigate her way to adulthood as best as she can, but finding that she may be failing at every turn.

“Thought-provoking, seamless... a perfect mix of realism and satire” ★★★★,Exeposé £12/£10 concs.

Buring Tales © Eden Harbud

Nod At The Fox

Paula Varjack

Burning Tails

The Cult of K*nzo

Wed 30 - Thu 31 Jan, 9pm Definitely, categorically, 100% based on true events; through music, absurd soulful metaphors and chain smoking puppets, Eden tells the emotional and tragic tale of an exponentially unfortunate fox…

“Genius suicidal squirrel puppet show” -Sh!t Theatre ★★★★-Fly On The Wall Awards £12/£10 concs.

anorak

Fri 1 Feb, 9pm, Sat 2 Feb, 5pm & 9pm

it’s alright everything’s okay

Following a run at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe, Anorak presents a new version of their hit show it’s alright everything’s okay, an intimate and surreal exploration of climate change denial, trying to be happy, and what happens when everything goes wrong.

“It’s the sadness, the silences in these types of plays that always gets me” -Exeunt £8

Tue 5 - Sat 9 Feb, 9pm

Don’t Miss

On November 5 2016, Paula Varjack found herself queuing at 4:00 am, outside of a shopping centre in east London, for the collaboration between the high end designer KENZO and high street label H&M. Five hours later, she emerged carrying the largest shopping bag she had ever carried, in a complete and total daze. What had just happened? What was it about Kenzo?

THE CULT OF K*NZO is a solo performance combining storytelling, videography, sound design and choreography, to playfully explore one woman’s life long desire for luxury and the ways in which luxury brands create that desire.

Seed Commissioned by CPT.

£12/£10 concs.

SPRINT FESTIVAL

Tue 5 - Sun 24 March Sprint is CPT’s annual festival of new and unusual theatre. Even more than elsewhere in our calendar, we throw open our doors – and our stages – to artists at the dawn of their careers, making brand new cutting-edge work. Check in here for shows and talents you’ve never dreamt of before, doing striking new things with theatre and performance.

Plus one or two old CPT friends, twisting their practise into new shapes.

And look out for this year’s Starting Blocks 2019 showcase, at which hot-from-therehearsal-room work created on our celebrated development scheme takes its first precocious steps onto a stage…

Kate Moss Experience © Janet

Heidi Niemi & Sinikka Kyllönen

Daniel Spicer/ Dirty Rascals

Finn Noir

It was the second time Dad made your cheesecake that my heart sheared in two

Tue 5 - Wed 6 March, 7.15pm Two detectives tackle the criminal underworld of northern Finland. Long nights watching Scandi Noir have not been in vain.

Their minds are sharp, their bodies strong.

This is their moment!

Wed 6 March, 9pm

£8 [work in progress]

There were whole weekends spent watching you play Playstation. Time is precious - you must call your parents, but who do you really wanna talk to? Part interactive theatre, part audio-visual tour of a childhood, all catharsis.

Shark Legs

Cheap Date

Fulfilment

Dirty Words

Tue 5 March, 9pm Robox was programmed with one ambition - to fulfil your every need.

Welcome to the Fulfilment Centre. Let Robox deliver your journey to fulfilment.

(Next day delivery available.) £8 [work in progress]

#CPTSPRINT19

£8 [work in progress]

Thu 7 March, 7.15pm A crash landing of self-expression, communication, humour, action and reaction through live music, dance, theatre, and digital media. This visual monologue questions the physical, verbal, facial, tonal, nuanced way we talk to the world. Accessible for D/deaf audiences. £12/£10 concs.

Camp be yourself © BOX. theatre Company

Finn Noir © Jouni Porsanger

BOX. Theatre Company

Attila Theatre in Co-Production with Grafted Cede

Camp Be Yourself

I, Incel

Thu 7 March, 9pm

A surreal and anarchic two-woman comedy packed with glitter, friendship and desperation. For those of you that can’t be yourself in real life, you Camp Be Yourself here. £12/£10 concs.

TomYumSim

Fri 8 March, 7.15pm

Nothing Special

A fantastical self-help seminar for extra-ordinary, special people. Prepare to be transformed and rebirthed as the best possible version of yourself—in just one hour. Because you are special. And you know it. £12/£10 concs.

Sat 9 March, 9pm

You’re an awkward teenager, struggling to make friends, whilst other kids are losing their virginities at parties. Sound familiar? Naturally, you blame feminism- Wait...no, you don’t, but these boys do.

Welcome to the world of the involuntary celibatesthe Incels. £8 [work in progress]

Battered Soul

Sun 10 March, 5.30pm

A Piece

After a seismic change, David finds himself middleaged, lost and unable to speak to anyone about it.

Anyone, that is, apart from you. A genre-defying monologue exploring loneliness and homosexuality. £12/£10 concs.

Janet

Fri 8 March, 9pm

The Kate Moss Experience

An off-piste two-man biography of Kate Moss, slaloming from the sublime to the ridiculous, and colliding storytelling, choreography, music and mime in a genre-bending look at fashion, fame and identity.

Earwax X Sprint

Sun 10 March, 7.15pm

Earwax X Sprint

£12/£10 concs.

Earwax brings together women and femme identifying individuals who make noise. Expect live music, poetry, live edits and performance in an event celebrateing women’s voices.

Shortwave

Various Artists

MOJAVE

Big Bang

Sat 9 March, 7.15pm A devised piece of multimedia theatre telling the true story of the Mojave Desert phone booth: how it was discovered and how it rose to cult status. £12/£10 concs.

£12/£10 concs.

Mon 11 & 18 March, 7.30pm Our regular scratch night of explosive performance from which new universes of theatre may one day emerge. Expect never-before-seen ideas and some of the freshest work from the UK’s most innovative and exciting theatre makers. £12/£10 concs.

#CPTSPRINT19

Thursday Triple

1 show £7.50, 2 shows £12, 3 shows £15 Emma Clark and PJ Stanley

Thu 14 March, 7pm

One Shot George © Joe Magowan

Contingency Theatre

Tue 12 March, 7.15pm

George

George has been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; a meeting with the mysterious ‘J’. Follow Contingency Theatre’s stunning choreography, live music and surreal comedy through a world of bizarre, dangerous ambition.

A multimedia exploration of the politics of auteurship, told through the films of Stanley Kubrick. What does it mean to take creative risks in an era where most are only granted one shot?

Alex Rohmat

Thu 14 March, 8pm

Hot Coffee

Music. Adverts. The news. Everything a great radio show needs to thrive. Oh, a good story, because we all love a good story, right? Hot Coffee - more than just radio.

£12/£10 concs.

Mae-Li Evans

Katrina Quinn

Tue 12 March, 9pm

Totality

Q. What happens when you move a 12-yearold from Basingstoke to Zambia? A. She swims. Spoken word meets physical theatre and ‘00s R&B in a touching and comic memoir.

Tom Adams

Individual Medley £12/£10 concs.

Ben Kulvichit

Wed 13 March, 7.15pm

Gaeng Kiew Waan

In 1992, celebrated contemporary artist Rirkrit Tiravanija cooked a Thai green curry for gallery visitors. He said that the curry is not the art, but the people eating it. Now Ben will do the same for you. £8 [work in progress]

Marv Radio

Wed 13 March, 9pm

Mantra

Mantra is a journey into the power of words, sound and music by vocalist and storyteller Marv Radio. A high-energy hip-hop musical about mental health, music, healing and shamanism. £12/£10 concs.

#CPTSPRINT19

Thu 14 March, 9pm Full moon. Half-moon. Total eclipse. Drawing inspiration from home videos, personal testimonies and that Jaffa Cake advert, Totality explores the inexplicable experience of watching a total solar eclipse.

Thu 21 March 7pm

Panic Stations

A musician takes the stage with someone he has never performed with before. They improvise. Life lessons will be learned. It will be interactive and funny. From the maker of Still Score and Elephant and Castle.

Anna Marie Synstad Simonsen, Frankie Thompson and Elizabeth Parker

Thu 21 March 8pm

Forbruker

A female clown is placed in the world of consumer culture.

Through mime, lip-sync and general idiocy she battles her way through distinctive branding and absurdity.

Maya de Freitas

Thu 21 March 9pm

Postcode Wars

Maya doesn’t need a newspaper, or a statistic or a BBC Panorama Documentary to tell her family’s story, ‘cause this is the one they don’t and won’t tell.

Made in India Britain © Rinkoo Barpaga

Josephine Starte & Anna Clock

Venice as a Dolphin

Mary and Maria

The First Time As Tragedy

Fri 15 March, 7.15pm

Children are priceless. Teaching assistants earn minimum wage. Au pairs work for free. Who looks after your kids and how much should it cost? A rant.

A conversation. A mess.

Sun 17 March, 5.30pm

Ever had a look at the history of humanity and thought: I could have done a better job? Finally, interactive theatre that lets you do just that... £8 [work in progress]

£12/£10 concs.

Last Word

Hidden Track Theatre Company

The Great Cat Massacre

Drawing the Line

Fri 15 March, 9pm

Paris (1730) Shop workers executed their masters’ cats in one of the first workers’ protests. London (2018) 14 million live in poverty. An irreverent, absurdist exploration of late stage capitalism.

Sun 17 March, 7.15pm

Drawing the Line is an interactive storytelling experience which questions identity, community, and citizenship by inviting its audiences to build nations.

Oh, and only one nation gets to survive.

£8 [work in progress]

£8 [work in progress]

Sat 16 March

Rinkoo Barpaga

Starting Blocks Showcase

A showcase of the work created and developed by artists on our trailblazing Starting Blocks scheme.

Over ten weeks, these selected artists meet weekly to share practice, ideas and their developing works.

This event is the showcase of their work. This year’s participants are Alex Roberts, Charlotte Fraser, Claire Gaydon, Peyvand Sadeghian, Sara Dawood, Tom Chamberlain and Jack Tricker.

Tue 19 March, 7.15pm

Made in India Britain

Rinkoo Barpaga uses British Sign Language. He has encountered both racism and discrimination, and as a result he has been constantly asking himself the question, “where do I belong?”. £12/£10 concs.

£12/£10 concs.

#CPTSPRINT19

Becks Turner

Tue 19 March, 9pm

Melonade

Shotput

A hilarious combination of clown-esque theatre and live art, Melonade is an interactive game show that explores neurodiversity and questions the measuring intelligence by timed exams.

Fri 22 March, 9pm

Ferguson and Barton

Bootworks Theatre

A contemporary couple perform a live recreation of Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece, Vertigo.

A new piece of dance-theatre, Ferguson and Barton explodes ideas of gender roles, modern relationships and sexual obsession.

We Could Be Heroes

Joana Nastari / Koko Brown

£8 [work in progress]

Wed 20 March, 7.15pm

£12/£10 concs.

A show about heroes, why we have them, why we need them, and how we can all become one. £12/£10 concs.

Sat 23 March, 7.15pm

Amazonian Sweat Lodge

Jo & Koko have returned from their gap-month spiritually lit beings. They’ve created their own church.

Part sermon, part raucous party - full of music, comedy and consensual audience participation.

Caitlin Gleeson / Ross McCaffrey

Wed 20 March, 9pm

Vera

£8 [work in progress]

In this show about dark matter, sexism, and truth, two people attempt to tell the story of an astrophysicist’s quest for recognition and end up illuminating more about themselves than they intended. £8 [work in progress]

Elsa Couvreur and Mehdi Duman

Fri 22 March, 7.15pm

Anchor

The duet Anchor delves into the complexities of relationships. Playfully probing the tensions between passion and security, wants and needs, fantasy and compassion, within the life of a couple. £12/£10 concs.

Heather Bandenburg

Sat 23 March, 9pm

I need to Cher

I Need to Cher is a journey in to a lucid dreamland ruled by one woman’s unashamed, celebratory love of Cher. Using Cher inspired comedy, music and wrestling this show promises to leave you in a Cher instilled euphoria. £12/£10 concs.

Soraya Nabipour

Sun 24 March, 5.30pm

standing; remember

The performer’s task is to stand and remember.

An investigation into the sculptural values of performance spatial and temporal materiality and what it means to make the private public. £12/£10 concs.

Oop-la!

Sun 24 March, 7.15pm

Encore, Encore!

A drag-queen, a clown, a fish, and a Frenchman walk into a theatre, which is also a gay bar, which is also a circus, which is also a secret lair, which is also a filmset - and it’s always a riot. £12/£10 concs.

Encore, Encore! © Oop-la!

#CPTSPRINT19

The Washing Up © small performance adventures

Barrel Organ

Dylan Townley & Sam Plumb

LIVE 10 & 11

Fanny and Stella

Mon 25 March & Mon 20 May, 7.30pm Barrel Organ’s regular scratch night; presenting experimental and non-traditional work from underrepresented artists that is all about play, audiences and the ‘liveness’ of theatre.

Tue 26 March, 9pm

Trial of the century. Society outraged. Men dressed as ladies. You can get away with anything these days.

These days being 1870. An explosive musical retelling of Victorian scandal.

£5

£8 [work in progress] £8 [work in progress]

Marion Burge with Dejonie Langallier and Amanda Oyebusola Ajomale

small performance adventures

Tue 26 - Thu 28 March, 7.15pm

We Owe You A Legacy

We Owe You a Legacy is a deeply felt, lyrical exploration of the way colonialism has infiltrated the mother-daughter relationship in contemporary black diaspora communities.

The show interrogates the legacy of colonialism. The trauma, the consequence, the blood and the sacrifice. £12/£10 concs.

Wed 27 - Thu 28 March, 9pm

The Washing Up

With original songs and stories, The Washing Up takes an absurd look at the politics and practice of this every day act. Every kitchen sink has a story to tell, of power struggles, greasy plates and moments of quiet contemplation. Join us to explore what lies beneath the surface. “ a generous, ego-free ensemble performance, and the best of people’s theatre” - Colin Grant, Guardian writer. £12/£10 concs.

We owe you a Legacy © Marian Burge

Presented by CPT

Fri 29 March, 7pm

The Brexit Carnival

Join a line-up of crack CPT entertainers to commemorate, question and cabaret the hell out of Britain’s departure from the European Union. Expect performances and conversations, songs, sketches and cris de coeur, as we bid au revoir, auf wiedersehen and jäähyväiset (nope, me neither) to the gang. (And if it’s not happening – well, let’s talk about what might happen instead…) £12/£10 concs.

Jess Green in association with Discerning Nights

Sat 30 March 7.15pm & Sun 31 March 5.30pm

A Self Help Guide to Being In Love With Jeremy Corbyn

A hard hitting, intelligent, Performance poetry show about Labour, Tories and the division of the left. BBC Slam Champion, Jess Green joined the Labour Party at university in 2007. Now, she’s fallen head over heels in love with Jeremy Corbyn and his raw socialist magnetism. If only everyone else agreed. How will we ever win another general election when the left is so divided?

“Green has struck a chord” -The Guardian £12/£10 concs.

Ryan O’Shea

Sat 30 March 9pm & Sun 31 March 7.15pm

IRAN

A solo performance investigating notions of anxiety and the human desire to run away from emotion. Pungent with the euphoric melancholy of electronic music and taking the narrative and stylings of ‘I Ran (So Far Away)’ by A Flock of Seagulls, I R A N follows a character as they fall in love with a seagull and struggle to face their feelings. £12/£10 concs.

Become a member for as little as £25 per year.

Benefits include 10% off tickets and drinks at the bar, access to last minute offers and much more.

Visit the Support Us pages on the website for full details.

Two weeks of programming alongside Lanre Malaolu’s Elephant in the Room, exploring mental health and wellbeing.

Tue 2 - Sat 13 April

Elephant in the Room © Lanre Malaolu

Lanre Malaolu

Don’t Miss

Tue 2 - Sat 20 April, 7.15pm

Elephant in the Room

Michael, a young working-class black man from Hackney, seems to have a good life - a decent job, solid friends, he even volunteers as a football coach at his local youth football club on weekends. But as the days go by, it gets a little harder for Michael to get out of bed in the morning, a little harder for Michael to connect with his friends and a little harder for Michael to do his volunteering to the best of his ability.

There’s something going on, something he needs to address but keeps hidden.

As the pressure mounts and the challenges of Michael’s mental health deepen, we see how he grapples to keep control and the effects it has on his life when he doesn’t.

A fusion of physical theatre, hip-hop dance and spoken word, Elephant in the Room is inspired by Lanre’s personal experiences. It’s an explosive and unapologetic dance theatre solo exploring the mental health crisis within the working-class black community.

Commissioned by Camden People’s Theatre and supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Supported by Arts Council England, Camden Peoples Theatre, Talawa, The Wellcome Trust, The Michael Grandage Company, DanceEast and The Place.

£12/£10 concs.

Jess Gibson

Tue 2 - Wed 3 April, 9pm

Work In Progress

Sometimes, everyday questions turn into existential crises for Jess as she struggles to manage her mental health; Borderline Personality Disorder, Anxiety and Depression. Work in Progress is a warm, lighthearted solo show about being Scouse, dancing to Britney Spears and sharing stories of hope. £12/£10 concs.

Amelia Stubberfield

Thu 4 - Fri 5 April, 9pm

Borderline

Borderline is a comic tale of living life on the edge and trying not to fall off. Navigating mental health, queer identities and a life led in flux, it explores the impact of having labels imposed upon you and begs the question what is “normal” anyway? £12/£10 concs.

Fri 5 – Sun 7 April

the Sick of The Fringe

Amidst a time of great and nerve-wracking societal change, The Sick of the Fringe present their second London programme: Care & Destruction.

A weekend of performance and conversation dedicated to some of the most exciting and pressing voices looking at health and social justice. New artistic commissions, unique collaborations and fearless conversations will uncover the stories we are not seeing, the stories we are avoiding, the stories we don’t yet have the language to tell. Unhealthy care and necessary destruction? Rip it up, air the room, start again. Full programme to be announced. thesickofthefringe.com / @TSOTFringe / #TSOTF

Borderline © Lucy Le Brocq

Koko Brown

Thu 11 April, 9pm

Grey

Koko is a strong, independent, black woman. She has a roof over her head. She has food in her fridge. She lives a good life. She’s also a little bit sad, a lot of the time. She doesn’t understand why.

A candid show exploring depression and black women’s mental health. Blending spoken word and vocal looping, GREY is fully British Sign Language integrated and contains sensitive content.

Accessible for D/deaf audiences.

Holly Gallagher

Seed Commissioned by CPT.

Tensile Strength

Hitchhiker Collective

Tue 9 - Wed 10 April, 9pm

(or How to Survive at Your Wit’s End)

Tensile Strength (or How to Survive at Your Wit’s End) is a performance about Stress. And figuring out why so many of us feel it to an unhealthy degree. It’s about fear, pressure, uncertainty. It’s about sadness and mental health and how we help ourselves. It’s about feeling like things are all A Bit Too Much and then the cat goes missing. Essential viewing for a society that just can’t seem to relax anymore. £12/£10 concs.

£12/£10 concs.

Fri 12 - Sat 13 April, 9pm

Out of Touch

Lou’s got a tough decision ahead of them. When doing the right thing is so difficult, is it really worth doing? There’s only one constant: what would Jeff Goldblum do?

Join them as they lay themselves bare in this offbeat tale of what it’s like to live with Borderline Personality Disorder. £8 [work in progress]

Two Tonne

Rhiannon Brace

The Netherlands

The Promised Land

Mon 15 April, 7.15pm

Tue 23 - Wed 24 April, 9pm

The Netherlands is about being the parent of a child with a learning disability in an often unhelpful world. It’s also about finding out, despite yourself, that the Netherlands is a beautiful, wonderful country. A play that speaks to everyone who has known the magnificent, terrifying, joyful, heart-breaking chaos that is becoming a parent.

Based on Rhiannon’s experiences being brought up in the Worldwide Church of God. The Promised Land is a haunting tale told through scriptures, songs, and recurring dreams. £12/£10 concs.

£12/£10 concs.

Tom Cassani

Tom Ryalls

I Promise You that Tonight…

Thu 25 - Sat 27 April, 9pm

Tue 16 - Wed 17 April, 9pm

Can You See Into A Black Hole?

Tom had his first epileptic seizure, went into cardiac arrest and when he was revived he had to face the fact that he would never allowed to go to space as an epileptic. 15 years later, with the help of his parents, he’s going to defy science. A show about how to achieve the impossible, with a score created from documentary interviews, music and the only surviving film of one of his seizures. £12/£10 concs.

Joseph Morgan Schofield

Thu 18 - Sat 20 April, 9pm

Here Comes the Sun

here comes the sun is a contemporary rite for transformation + survival, a stagger thru eco + gender anxieties with a fresh dronescape by nat norland, striking images, provocative action + rich associative text, “mesmeric, poetic” performance artist joseph morgan schofield uncovers lost histories + crafts queer myths of ecocide + endurance + ecstasy returning following its debut in CPT’s festival Camden Underground £12/£10 concs.

Claire Gaydon

Tue 23 - Sat 27 April, 7.15pm

Using the rhetoric of the showman, miraclemonger and sceptic, Cassani will proselytise, pedal and preach the importance of remaining wary of those who make extraordinary claims. £12/£10 concs.

Miriam Gould

Sun 28 April 6pm & Mon 29 April 9pm

Empty Room

The first solo show from musician and theatre maker Miriam Gould (Associate Artist of Little Bulb Theatre), Empty Room uses live song, intertwined monologues and a violin concerto to explore how music can free us; revealing hidden depths in order to survive in times when we need it most. £12/£10 concs.

Sun 28 April, 7.30pm & Mon 17 June, 7.30pm

Big Bang

Our regular scratch night of explosive performance from which new universes of theatre may one day emerge. Expect never-before-seen ideas and some of the freshest work from the UK’s most innovative and exciting theatre makers. £12/£10 concs.

Don’t Miss

Sh!t Theatre

Mon 29 April - Wed 1 May, 7.15pm

See-Through

Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum With Expats

£12/£10 concs.

Supported by CPT.

Last year, 34% of young people voted YouTuber as their top career choice. Claire was intrigued. She decided to have a go. Part documentary, part live performance, part parody, part desperate as f*ck, Claire does everything she can to entertain her online audience. While remaining 100% totally authentically real. Examining validation, confession and the cost of sharing, SeeThrough is an edited, unedited, live, pre-recorded, reality show that invites you to see behind the camera.

“A smart, well-crafted, funny solo show, examining the costs of living your life in the public eye.” - Exeunt

Celebrating their final year as Europeans, islandmonkeys Becca and Louise got invited to the 2018 European Capital of Culture in Malta, having missed out on Hull last year.

They went to drink rum with Brits abroad but found a lot more than they expected. Lads on tour Sh!t Theatre want to talk about home, your home, what we are doing in your home, what you might be doing in our home and how cheap the beers are. Finally that work-in-progress of an experimental fringe theatre show about Malta you’ve all been waiting for! £8 [work in progress]

See Through © Claire Gaydon

BÉZNĂ Theatre

Nouveau Riche

ILLEGALISED

The Brand Nouveau Festival

Tue 30 April - Thu 2 May, 9pm ILLEGALISED is protest-theatre that journeys through the Home Office’s human rights abuses against ‘the other’, exposing the immigration industrial complex and the profit made from the illegalisation of human beings. £10/£8 concs.

Harry Josephine Giles and Co.

Thu 2 May, 7pm

Drone

A live jam of music, video and poetry, singing with humour and fury the technology of a neurotic century. How can anxious people live in systems of such astonishing destruction?

“A state of the nation address from a frayed electronic mind flying high above that nation and looking for a place to hit.” ★★★★-The Scotsman £12/£10 concs.

Fri 3 - Sat 4 May, 7pm / 2.30pm

From the company behind (CPT-supported) Queens of Sheba, The Brand Nouveau Initiative is Nouveau Riche’s new attachment scheme that aims to nurture and develop the next generation of theatre practitioners, collaborating with each other to create exciting brand new work. The work created from this process will culminate our inaugural Brand Nouveau Festival. £12/£10 concs. all day ticket

YesYesNoNo

Sun 5 - Mon 6 May, 5.30pm / 7.15pm

the accident did not take place

A brand new show from award-winning YESYESNONO. A new guest performer each night.

A summoning of conspiracy in a post-truth world. £8 [work in progress]

John Akinde

Sun 5 May, 7.15pm

Oja (The Market)

Oja seeks to uncover the dark world of drug dealing through the struggle of a black family trying to make ends meet and the real impact of the black market on communities. In Oja, Akinde explores unemployment, illegal immigration and deprivation. £8 [work in progress]

THE CAMDEN ROAR Tue 7 - Sat 25 May

Human Jam © Camden People’s Theatre

The market! The lock! The People’s Theatre! Amy Winehouse, Madness and Blur.

The British Library! Hampstead Heath! Withnail & I! It’s London’s most iconic borough, and many of its people and stories are well known.

But not all of them. And so, to celebrate 25 years resident in Camden, CPT launches ‘The Camden Roar’, a three-week festival of theatre by, for and about Camden and its people.

Throughout May, artists including Tom Marshman, Camden Youth Theatre, Dani Kolanis, Beats & Elements – not to mention CPT itself – will present a host of new work made especially for our neighbourhood, while extending (as Camden always does) a generous welcome to the rest of London – and the world. #CPTCAMDENROAR

Presented by CPT

Tue 7 - Sat 25 May, 7.15pm

Don’t Miss

Human Jam

How do you excavate 63,000 bodies? Where will they go? And what will be uncovered by all this digging?

In St James’ Gardens, right on CPT’s doorstep, the biggest exhumation of graves in European history is taking place. Parks and pubs are closing, too. People are losing their homes and businesses. All to make way for HS2’s new railway terminal.

“We late-lamented, resting here, / Are mixed to human jam”. CPT’s epic new docu-theatre event digs deep into a small but stubborn community, an £80bn infrastructure project – and the ghosts of Euston past.

Created by CPT’s Artistic Director Brian Logan.

Supported by the Birkbeck Public Engagement Seed Fund.

£12/£10 concs.

Beats and Elements

Tue 7 - Sat 11 May, 9pm

High Rise eState of Mind

A stunning new show from the makers of No Milk For the Foxes, DenMarked and Frankenstein exposing young people’s fears of where will they live. Is it a fair race or is the system fundamentally f****d? High Rise eState of Mind tells difficult to swallow truths through a dystopian lense using grime, beat boxing, hip hop, looping and MCing. A fast paced, urban story about class and housing, frustrations, inequalties and the pointlessness of it all at times.

Co-commissioned by Strike A Light, Battersea Arts Centre and Camden People’s Theatre.

£12/£10 concs.

Sun 12 – Mon 13 May, 5.30pm / 7pm

Camden Youth Theatre

Our world-class Youth Theatre are back with a brand new show having returned from gracing the stage at the international Chrysalis Festival at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre. Expect their signature brand of inventive performance and some seriously impressive talent. More details to be announced soon. £8/£5 concs. Free for U19’s

Sean Mahoney

Tue 14 & Wed 15 May, 9pm

Until You Hear That Bell

Returning from a run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2018, Sean brings his smash hit show to his home borough for the first time.

“A winning performance from a skilled storyteller.” ★★★★-The Stage £12/£10 concs.

Dani Kolanis

Thu 16 - Sat 18 May, 9pm

Cadets

Volunteer Police Cadets, Gabbi, Staff Joe, Camden Town, drill, dougie, Malibu and JD, Redbridge, bleep test, vom, the ethnic minority backhand, Rude Boy, first aid, free food and diversity quotas.

Follow Camden Volunteer Police Cadets as they take on a gruelling physical competition to save their unit from being disbanded. With storytelling, physical theatre and a true devotion to NW1. £12/£10 concs.

Tom Marshman

Tue 21 - Sat 25 May, 9pm

Kings Cross (REMIX)

Tom Marshman uncovers the hidden histories of London’s LGBTQ communities through memories of the Kings Cross area - which has undergone radical change since its 1980s heyday as a hub of LGBTQ culture. Woven together from the stories of people who experienced it first-hand, Tom’s show - returning after a sell-out 2017 run - celebrates a raucous, riotous time in the life of central London where sexuality was for exploring, HIV was causing tragedy, and rights were to be fought for. £12/£10 concs.

Mon 27 May – Sun 16 June

Calm Down, Dear 2019

It’s back! One of the highlights of any CPT calendar, our annual festival of innovative feminist theatre Calm Down, Dear returns. Previous editions launched out-there hits including Sh!t Theatre’s Women’s Hour, Louise Orwin’s Pretty Ugly and, last year, Racheal Ofori’s So Many Reasons onto an unsuspecting world. Who will follow in their footsteps? Watch this space: 2019’s fearless and (mainly) female programme of trailblazing performance will be announced in the New Year.

Membership Camden People’s Theatre is a charity and we rely on the donations of our supporters to enable us to keep our vibrant programme going.

Your donations support our artist development programmes and keep community projects like Camden Youth Theatre thriving.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary we’ve launched a brand new membership programme.

For the first time ever you can become a CPT Friend and a regular donor to the theatre. You’ll get some great benefits in return - and you get to support the commissioning and creation of work from our incredible emerging artists. For that, we’d be incredibly grateful. We can’t wait to welcome you into the CPT family.

Become a member for as little as £25 per year.

Visit the Support Us pages on the website for full details.

Noise © Andy Catlin

Artist Opportunities

We are three minutes’ walk from Warren Street, Euston Square or Euston Tube Stations. We are opposite Sainbury’s Local, on the corner of Hampstead Road and Drummond Street.

DRUMMOND ST MELTON ST

DRUMMOND ST

HAMPSTEAD RD

Camden People’s Theatre’s year-round programme is dedicated to supporting young and emerging artists making inventive new theatre - particularly about issues that matter to people right now.

CPT supports artists in a number of ways, including structured schemes dedicated to the creation of new work (Starting Blocks and Home Run), regular commissions and seed commissions, paid opportunities to scratch work-in-progress performances, and through the offer of rehearsal space, fundraising advice and dramaturgical support. Check out the Opportunities page on our website for details and sign up to our dedicated Artist Opportunities newsletter to keep up-to-speed with the latest call outs.

EUSTON RD (A501) EUSTON SQ WARREN ST

Box Office 020 7419 4841 cptheatre.co.uk / @CamdenPT Camden People’s Theatre

58-60 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PY

EUSTON

CPT’s theatre is wheelchair accessible.

If you are a wheelchair user, please let us know when you are booking so we can ensure you have the best possible experience during your visit.