Shows

Check out all the brilliant shows we've got as part of this year's festival. This year we've also got three performance strands which makes it clear to audiences what they are going to see, which are fittingly font themed as Bold, Italic and Underlined.

Bold work is shows from experienced artists with a finished piece. Italic would be something with a particular angle to it such as work in progress and wanting to get people's angle on it or performance-y art type stuff rather than a straight theatre show. Underlined as new emerging work from new companies which we've found and liked - they've been underlined by us in the programme, think seeing The Beatles in Hamburg. We can also have combos of these. You'll see this in the listings below.

Tickets for all events and shows can be booked here and you can see the shows, plus our #FONTneatPICKS on our events calendar.


The Actors' Workshop present: American Movie Monologues, or Quango Quiz!

Mad on movies? Pop along to a pub quiz with a difference and see some of Nottingham’s best actors perform classic American screen scenes. Enjoy pints, performances and guess the film! The Actors' Workshop nurtures new talent, enhances the skills of experienced actors and provides opportunities to develop careers in the industry. Workshops are run Monday and Wednesday evenings in the city centre. If you would like to be part of The Actors Workshop please get in touch.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Andrew "Mulletproof" Graves presents: God Save the Teen

Described as 'pure genius', God Save The Teen is all about growing up and getting it wrong, offering tales of starry-eyed punks, disappearing Goths, disastrous dates and Eighties' rock 'n' roll failure. Add in a confused poet and a highly critical, flatulent single dad and you get hilarity and heartbreak in equal measure. “A fresh and funny, high-quality performance” ★★★★★
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Andy Szpuk, with Paul Quadros, presents: Austerity Café

Austerity Café is a fusion of political satire, fractured melodies and verse, serving bite sized chunks of the UK sociopolitical pie, performed by writer and poet, Andy Szpuk, with guitar from Paul Quadros. Yannis owns Austerity Café, where he welcomes customers to air their views. We hear from Karl the protestor, Phil the lorry driver and George the banker.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Ava Hunt presents: Acting Alone

Acting Alone is inspired by the people Ava met in refugee camps in Palestine. In her unique performance style, Ava weaves together stories of immense complexity and fragile humanity together with bizarre experiences of working as an actor and performing alone. Heartbreaking, witty, Acting Alone asks questions of us all – can one person make a difference? “Compelling”
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Ben Norris presents: "Spoken-word performance from Ben Norris"? I’m not sure…

Expect frank but hilarious poems about the midlands, generational bigotry, falling in and out of love, and being a millennial, whatever the fuck a millennial is, all delivered with Norris’s trademark self-deprecating wit and directness. “A tremendous performer with genuine presence and charisma to burn” ★★★★★ (ThreeWeeks) “Performs his sharply crafted poems with breathtaking verve and expertise” (Cheltenham Lit Fest).
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Bread & Roses present: Food For Thought//In Whose Name? double bill

Food for Thought takes real stories from people in Nottingham who have experiences of visiting a food bank or volunteering and weaves them with journalistic sources. In Whose Name? is a brand new- piece using interviews from Refugees who have come to Nottingham and explores their lives as well as the racism and media attention surrounding the Syrian Crisis.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Dan Nicholas presents: Scripted

A madcap stand-up hour that bats around from interactive games to surreal one-liners and some longer bits. From the Jumper Game to the Elimination Process, Imagine if Tim Burton made a stand-up game show and it might be like this... ‘Someone as inventive as this should have a future in comedy.' (Chortle.co.uk).
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Handmade Theatre present: How Time Flies

14:00 on Monday 30th May at The Lofthouse. [Theatre] BI
How Time Flies is an ambitious and exciting new production being developed by the Handmade Theatre team. It will engage a family audience in a fun and interactive show all about history and archaeology. This is a work-in-progress sharing.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Lewys Holt & Dan Nicholas present: Improvisation

Dance/Theatre improvisation from dance artist Lewys Holt and comedian/writer Daniel Nicholas. Sometimes together and sometimes solo they'll be writing, choreographing and performing simultaneously on stage. Who knows what will happen? They don't.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Louise White presents: All This Debris

Badly buttered toast, a fear of Falmouth, and elephants; depression leaves some strange things behind. Louise is packing her depression into boxes but some things don’t fit. Raising awareness and challenging attitudes towards depression and mental health, Louise makes sense of her experiences and daily vices with some much needed help from David Attenborough and you, the audience.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Major Labia presents: Major Labia

Major Labia are a comedy collective of witty women. Graduates of the BAFTA-winning Television Workshop, the group has strong improvisational skills, and their approach to exploring representation is more raucous than righteous. Major Labia are here to offer an amusing look at society’s treatment of women, and are convinced that their sketch using Lady Macbeth’s 'Out damned spot’ speech to vilify tampon tax, was the sole cause of Call Me Dave’s recent arrival of humanity on the issue.
This is a double-bill with Sheep Soup's The Invention of Acting.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Michelle "Mother" Hubbard presents: Cutting Edge

An exploration of traditional cultural and historical practices all over the world that dehumanise and damage women; this piece intends to break taboo and raise awareness by paying particular attention to the practice of FGM (female genital mutilation). Powerful. Hard hitting. Thought provoking. Yet delicate, creative, and sensitive in its approach.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

The Mouthy Poets present: Mouthy Take Away

Come and grab a bite size piece of Nottingham’s Mouthy Poets Collective as Grace Bernard, Melanie Irmey, Nafeesa Hamid and Chris McLoughlin serve up a buffet of words and invite you to taste the poetry! Let them tempt your poetic palate with tasters and morsels, new flavours and old favourites. Sweet, sour or spicy, they guarantee something for all tastes.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Olwen Davies presents: Captured Souls

21:00 on Saturday 28th May at The Corner. [One-to-One Performance] BI
Sometimes you don’t know how precious a moment is until it becomes a memory. Captured Souls is a work in progress one-to-one performance examining what it is to remember and what it means to forget. Be prepared to have your photo taken.
Olwen's performance is a 5-10 minute One-to-One Performance, with 6 slots available from 21:00. Please sign up through the tickets link to reserve a slot on a first come, first served basis.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Plain & Simple Theatre presents: Phys Ed

A King Arthur-obsessed PE teacher, living in the shadow of his England rugby international brother, goes for glory with his team of schoolboys in this comedy romp through bed wetting, bullying and curiously hairy children. Can Neville’s team become national champions? Can Neville win his own personal holy grail? Or will fellow PE teacher / nemesis Smithers shatter his dreams?
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Sheep Soup Productions present: The Invention Of Acting

Sheep Soup is back with a brand new sketch show. Three humans discover The Invention of Acting, and the possibilities are endless. And also pointless. And also they end within half an hour. Expect characters, comedy and dribbling in your pants. With a bit of Sheep Soup-ey music.Audience are encouraged to give feedback on what will be a scratch performance before hitting the Fringe!
This is a double-bill with Major Labia's Major Labia.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

Studio 82 presents: Suddenly

Suddenly focuses on four groups, in one night down and one of them will die (oops, sorry for the spoilers.)  The show aims to raise awareness of Sudden Cardiac Death Syndrome (of which 12 young people in the UK die each week) and money for the charity, Cardiac Risk in the Young (Cry).
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!

The Gramophones present: A Walking Tour of Bolsover/Mansfield (working title)

We have been commissioned by FirstArt to make a show for Mansfield and Bolsover respectively. The audience will follow a route around their town interacting with women from the history of that place. This sharing will mark the end of our first week devising so ideas will be rough, perhaps read script in hand. We will be eager for feedback.
You can reserve your tickets by clicking here!