We have it all in 2024: world premieres, Soho debuts, award-winners, UK and international tours, Edinburgh smash hits, and opportunities to get involved.
New and emerging artists join big names to pack out our three spaces in Dean Street – Soho Theatre, Soho Upstairs and Soho Downstairs – and hit the road across the UK and in North America.
Highlights include:
- World premieres including the Verity Bargate Award-winning Boys on the Verge of Tears
- International tours for Queens of Sheba (USA, preceded by return performances at Soho) and Ben Target: LORENZO (Canada)
- A nine-date UK tour for this year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer Urooj Ashfaq, preceded by return performances at Dean Street
- Edinburgh theatre, comedy and cabaret hit show transfers including Graeae’s Self-Raising, Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and Sheep Soup’s House of Life
- Returning theatre companies including Scottish disability-led company Birds of Paradise and Kakilang 自己人
- Returns to Soho Theatre of hot tickets including Soho Six commissioned play Strategic Love Play by Miriam Battye.
For details of all shows from now through to Jun/Jul 2024, including Indian comic Anirban Dasgupta’s Soho Theatre debut, plus Paul Foot and Ed Byrne, and our Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer Season with Urooj Ashfaq, Bill O’Neill, Dan Tiernan, Paddy Young, Martin Urbano, Louise Young and Lindsay Santoro, click here.
Tickets are on sale now.
Queens of Sheba THEATRE
Soho Upstairs: Mon 18 – Sat 23 Dec
US tour: Fri 5 Jan – Sun 4 Feb 2024
Following sell-out runs at Soho in 2021 and 2022, Nouveau Riche’s Queens of Sheba returns for one week this December prior to a US tour to Lincoln Center – NYC, Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre, and Clarice Center, Arlington – Maryland. This multi-award-winning production by Jessica L. Hagan and Ryan Calais Cameron, loosely based on the DSTRKT nightspot incident of 2015, tells the hilarious, moving and uplifting stories of four passionate Black women battling every-day misogynoir; where sexism meets racism.
Queens of Sheba is a co-production between Soho Theatre and Nouveau Riche, presented in collaboration with Under the Radar in the USA. It returns to New York having played at the Public Theater earlier this year.
Urooj Ashfaq: Oh No! COMEDY
Soho Upstairs
Mon 8 – Sat 20 Jan 2024
Tue 23 Jan – Wed 7 Feb 2024 (UK tour)
Fresh from being crowned Best Newcomer at the 2023 Edinburgh Comedy Awards and following sold-out performances at Soho this autumn, Urooj Ashfaq returns to Soho with Oh No! followed by a nine-date UK tour to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leicester, Coventry, Manchester, Bristol, Milton Keynes, Birmingham, and Leeds. Urooj, a 28-year-old stand-up comedian from Mumbai, won Best Newcomer for her UK debut at the Edinburgh Fringe, the first time in the awards’ 40-year history an India-based comedian has won the award, and the first South Asian comedian to win since 1997. In her taboo-breaking, intensely likeable show, she reflects on cultural differences, her experiences in therapy and her parents’ divorce. Oh No! is produced by Soho Theatre in association with OML.
Ben Target: LORENZO THEATRE
Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour St, Vancouver, BC V6B 3L4, Canada
Fri 18 – Sat 20 Jan 2024
Fringe First 2023 winner and sold out at both this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and Soho this autumn, Ben Target performs LORENZO at PuSH International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver, Canada. Written by Ben and co-directed by Adam Brace and Lee Griffiths, it’s a life-affirming story about death, following Ben’s experience as a live-in carer for an irascible octogenarian prankster.
Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha COMEDY
Soho Downstairs
Tue 30 Jan – Sat 17 Feb
Having rectified her audience’s problems at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Julia Masli now promises to do the same for Soho Theatre audiences. A hit at this year’s festival, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha was nominated for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Estonian clown Julia Masli is the legs behind the sell-out hit shows Legs, Logs, and Choosh!, winner of the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality and The Telegraph’s Best Sad Clown Award and Off West End Theatre Award nominee.
Soho Rising ARTIST DEVELOPMENT SHOWCASE
Soho Upstairs
Mon 5 – Sat 17 Feb
Soho’s Labs are a unique and ambitious talent development programme engaging hundreds of emerging artists each year. The Soho Rising festival is an annual celebration of their work created by comedians, writers and performers who have taken part in Soho’s Writers’ Lab, Comedy Lab and Cabaret & Drag Lab. Previous Soho Rising artists include Archie Maddocks, Frankie Thompson, Jack Rooke, The Lol Word, Naomi Denny, Natasha Marshall, Sadie Clark, Sami Abu Wardeh, Sikisa, Temi Majekodunmi, Yolanda Mercy and Lorna Rose Treen.
Self-Raising THEATRE
Soho Theatre
Tue 6 – Sat 17 Feb 2024
Press night: Thu 8 Feb 2024
Award-winning artistic director of Graeae, Jenny Sealey, performs her acclaimed solo show Self-Raising at Soho before embarking on a nine-date national tour. Having spent a lifetime championing stories by Deaf and disabled artists, Jenny takes to the road to tell her own story. Unravelling the past and facing the future, Self-Raising is a blisteringly honest, laugh-out-loud one-woman show about growing up deaf in a family with secrets.
This Graeae production, in association with Soho Theatre and Theatr Iolo, and developed with The Incubator at The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath is written by Mike Kenny and Jenny Sealey and creatively integrates British Sign Language, captions and audio-description into all performances.
Dina Martina: Sub-Standards CABARET
Soho Downstairs
Tue 13 Feb – Sat 24 Feb 2024
The unwittingly hilarious Dina Martina is barrelling back to Soho with Sub-Standards, filled to the rim with the best intentions, yet tempered with inadvertently sad songs, ill-fitting costumes, and pointless stories. Over the years, Dina Martina has been hailed as ‘divinely funny’ (Time Out), ‘the most original drag performer in America today’ (The Village Voice), ‘as graceful as a Coke machine moving about on a hand truck’ (Seattle P-I) and has garnered a star-studded list of admirers including Eric Idle, Jennifer Coolidge, Graham Norton, Bridget Everett, Christopher Meloni and Chloë Sevigny.
Wish You Weren’t Here THEATRE
Soho Upstairs
Mon 19 Feb – Sat 2 Mar 2024
After all those extra shifts, all Lorna wants is a night out on the town and time to reconnect with her daughter. All 16-year-old Mila wants is for the world to stop burning. And for someone to take down that ‘Beach Body Ready’ poster. Please. As mum and daughter check into their ‘premium’ room where they can almost see the sea, they quickly discover their favourite seaside town, which was once their annual sunny escape, could really use some attention – just like their relationship.
Wish You Weren’t Here is a hilarious and heart-warming exploration of family relationships, the agony of growing up, and how to find one’s way in the world.
Written by Katie Redford (TAPPED, Theatre503; YELLOW LIPS, BBC Radio 4), directed by Rob Watt (HUMAN NURTURE, BIRDS AND BEES), and co-produced by Theatre Centre and Sheffield Theatres, this world premiere production has been created in conversation with hundreds of young people across the country.
Lucy McCormick: Lucy & Friends THEATRE/CABARET
Soho Theatre
Wed 28 Feb – Sat 16 Mar 2024
Performance artist and comedian Lucy McCormick returns from the Edinburgh Festival with her hat trick hit Lucy & Friends following cult shows Triple Threat and Post Popular.
This queer cabaret spectacular is a chaotic mix of pole dancing, cat impersonation, and some quick reworking of social policy.
In a despairing world, Lucy attempts to create community and connection the only way she knows how – through a smattering of sing-a-longs and a celebration of silliness. A master of theatrical manipulation and crushing personal vulnerability, Lucy leaves her audiences needing a hug, a cry and an immediate shower.
52 Monologues for Young Transexuals CABARET Soho Upstairs
Mon 4 – Sat 16 March 2024
A bubblegum-pink and brutally revealing hour of verbatim cabaret theatre on love, sex and trans-womanhood, by piss / CARNATION (formerly Nothing More to Say). “What’s the worst thing that’s ever made you feel like a woman?” Fresh from its successful Edinburgh run, 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals is a raucous and unapologetic speed-drive through transfeminine experience. Performers Laurie Ward and Charli Cowgill sat down with other trans women to get sleepover-honest about bodies, sex and love. Armed with baby oil and lots of pink glitter, they go from Barbra Streisand to BDSM, in a fever dream of hilarious and gut-wrenching confession. And no – there aren’t actually 52 monologues.
Catherine Bohart: Again, With Feelings COMEDY
Soho Downstairs
Mon 4 – Sat 23 Mar 2023
Catherine Bohart, seen and heard on Live at the Apollo, The Mash Report, Immaculate (Amazon Prime Special) and Mock the Week is back and older than ever. And adulthood frankly isn’t living up to her expectations. This ‘effortless’ (Chortle) ‘star in the making’ (Skinny) presents a hilariously twisted second coming of age saga as she reckons with death obsessed parents, living in a house share with OCD and queer reproduction in her thirties.
Monet X Change: Life Be Lifein’ CABARET
Soho Theatre
Mon 18 – Sat 23 Mar 2024
With sex, Siri, and the familiar mundane at the top of the mind, operatic bass-baritone and comedienne Monét X Change shares her anecdotal, intrusive thoughts and opinions on life and how it continues to perplex her at every turn in her debut hour. Monét is an entertainment spitfire and the first double-crown winner in RuPaul’s Drag Race herstory. Known for delivering energetic and show-stopping performances, Monét’s showwomanship is a reflection of a tireless work ethic to cultivate and perfect her immaculate lip-syncing skills, comedic chops and (mostly) pitch-perfect live singing.
Tickets go on sale to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Thu 23 Nov 2023.
Leslie Liao: The Nighttime Routine Tour COMEDY
Soho Downstairs
Mon 18 – Sat 23 Mar 2024
Up-and-coming US comedian Leslie Liao brings her honest, relatable, introspective, and no-nonsense style of humour to London for the first time, about the life and loves of a single Chinese-American woman living in LA.
Leslie Liao is one of the most exciting new stars of the LA comedy scene. Having acted as tour support for Fortune Feimster, and recently being selected to be a New Face of Comedy at Montreal’s prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival 2023, she can be seen in the new stand up comedy series Verified Stand Up on Netflix released next week, on Tue 28 Nov 2023.
Tickets are on sale.
Don’t. Make. Tea. THEATRE
Soho Theatre
Tue 26 Mar – Sat 6 Apr 2024
Birds of Paradise, last seen at Soho Theatre with Wendy Hoose in 2016, are back with their new show Don’t. Make. Tea. This riveting dark comedy from Rob Drummond shines a light on the welfare state and its impact on disabled people in Britain.
The near future. Chris never wanted to end up here. She’s a proud woman and hates asking for help but when her condition deteriorated she had no choice but to claim benefits. Ralph believes in the new system. He knows it can work for Chris. He’s here today, in her home, to assess her. To prove to her that there has been no mistake – she is fit and capable of working. Can Chris persuade him to change his mind? And, if not, how far is she willing to go to save herself?
Don’t. Make. Tea. is created by Glasgow-based disability led theatre company Birds of Paradise and comes to Soho following its critically acclaimed Scottish premiere in 2022. All performances are captioned and have creatively embedded BSL interpretation and audio description.
Tickets go on sale to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Fri 24 Nov 2023.
Pansexual Pregnant Piracy THEATRE
Soho Upstairs
Tue 26 Mar – Sat 13 Apr 2024
A raucous queer comedy with songs, Pansexual Pregnant Piracy explores the swashbuckling true story of eighteenth-century pirate Anne Bonny. Disguised as a man, Anne soars across oceans searching for booty (treasure) and booty (ass) alongside fellow pirate/partner/captain Calico Jack. But when hot wet babe Mary Read crawls aboard, the ship’s course isn’t the only thing that’s no longer straight. Can they flee the shadow of the Pirate Hunter General who dreams of taking down piracy and pansexuality? And what does it mean for their queer seafaring when their bellies brew more than just rum?!
Outlandish comedy collides with a ne’er-before-seen queer tale in Pansexual Pregnant Piracy, the follow-up to Airlock’s Offie-nominated Lesbian Space Crime, a hit at Soho in 2022.
Tickets go on sale to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Fri 24 Nov 2023.
Boys on the Verge of Tears THEATRE
Soho Theatre
Thu 11 Apr – Sat 18 May 2024
Press night Thu 18 Apr 2024
Next spring, Boys on the Verge of Tears by Sam Grabiner, winner of the Verity Bargate Award in 2022, receives its world premiere at Soho Theatre.
A father waits for his son. Kids hang around skipping school. Fights break out after nights of drinking. Featuring six actors in multiple roles, this bold, kaleidoscopic tale of violence and vulnerability is set entirely in the confines of a men’s public toilet. This brutal and tender exploration of what it is to be a man is directed by James Macdonald, whose highly acclaimed productions include premieres by Caryl Churchill, Annie Baker and Sarah Kane.
Tickets for Boys on the Verge of Tears are on sale.
The Verity Bargate Award is Soho Theatre’s flagship playwrighting competition, sponsored by Character 7. It is one of the longest-established playwrighting awards in the UK and the only award to guarantee the winning play a fully staged production in one of Soho’s three spaces. Applications for the next Verity Bargate Award open in April 2024. Further details will be announced in the new year.
Pickle THEATRE
Soho Upstairs
Mon 15 – Sat 27 Apr 2024
Written and performed by award-winning Deli Segal (Channel 4Screenwriting 2023), Pickle returns to Soho Theatre in spring 2024 following a successful run this summer and Off West End Award nominations for Best New Play, Best Performance Piece, and Sound Design.
Here’s the shtick: Ari is caught between two worlds. Still living at home in North-West London, she has her Jewish life, dominated by overbearing parents, traditions, and expectations. Then there’s her day-to-day life – the job, the pub, the foreskins. Pickle is a darkly comic uproarious simcha of a one-woman show about being Jewish and secular in the UK today. Expect smoked salmon, guilt and a large dose of self-deprecation.
Tickets go on sale on to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Fri 24 Nov 2023.
NT Connections YOUNG PEOPLE’S SHOWCASE
Soho Upstairs
Mon 29 Apr – Sat 4 May 2023
Every year, NT Connections commissions new plays for young people to perform. Open to any company of young people aged 13-19 through a school, a youth theatre or voluntary organisation, it connects some of the UK’s most exciting writers with the theatre-makers of tomorrow. In 2023/24 hundreds of youth companies from around the UK engage with the programme and the five groups working with Soho Theatre this time are: LSC Expressive Arts (City of London), Mulberry UTC Theatre Company (Tower Hamlets), Plashet School (Newham), St Paul’s Way Players (Tower Hamlets) and Stratford School Academy (Newham).
Further details about their performances at Dean Street will be announced in the new year.
Emily Woof in Blizzard THEATRE
Soho Upstairs
Tue 7 May – Sat 25 May 2024
Press night: Thu 9 May
Blizzard is an intimate epic about philosophy and neuroscience, dance and animals, love and the soul. A surreal and hilarious shaggy-dog story in which clothes don’t want to be clothes anymore. A dress becomes reluctant to be seen in public.
Emily returns to solo work (Sex III and Revolver) after writing novels for Faber and working in films (Velvet Goldmine, The Full Monty). Blizzard is directed by Hamish McColl from The Right Size whose west-end hits include The Play What I Wrote and Calendar Girls. As a screenwriter his credits include Mr Bean’s Holiday and Paddington.
Blizzard transfers to Soho Theatre in association with Shared Experience and premiered at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
Tickets go on sale on to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Fri 24 Nov 2023.
Strategic Love Play THEATRE
Soho Theatre
Wed 22 May – Sat 15 Jun 2024
Following sold out runs at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and at Soho this autumn, Strategic Love Play returns with a Main House transfer next spring. Written by Miriam Battye and directed by Katie Posner, this ‘comedic tour de force’ (Guardian) interrogates modern dating, and what we really talk about when we talk about love. Strategic Love Play is produced by Paines Plough, Soho Theatre and Belgrade Theatre in association with Landmark Theatres.
Tickets go on sale to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Fri 24 Nov 2023.
Primary Playwrights SCHOOLS SHOWCASE
Soho Theatre
June 2024
Soho Theatre’s flagship Primary Playwrights programme introduces hundreds of Year 6 children to the art of playwriting through creative writing workshops led by professional playwrights, working with professional actors who collaborate with pupils throughout the project. After a series of workshops in five Waltham Forest schools, pupils are invited to write a short five-minute play of their own which are read by Soho’s panel. A selection of the most original, imaginative and exciting are staged at Dean Street in the summer.
Further details about the participating schools will be announced in the new year.
House of Life THEATRE/ CABARET
Soho Upstairs
Tue 18 Jun – Sat 6 Jul 2024
House Of Life lands in Soho following a sold out, 5* run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. One-part sermon, one-part purge, three-parts party, House of Life is a travelling musical cult collective hosted by ‘the RaveRend’ with one mission: to get people happy, at any cost. A space to celebrate. To elevate. For audiences to lay out their shit and wash it away. A chance to achieve absolute euphoric togetherness through the relentless powers of music and vibes. Made up of alumni of the BAFTA-winning Television Workshop, Sheep Soup uses live music with loop pedals, sampled voices and interaction to create a feel-good, open hearted and celebratory cabaret theatre show.
Tickets go on sale to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Fri 24 Nov 2023.
The Dao of Unrepresentative British Chinese Experience GIG THEATRE
Soho Theatre
Wed 19 Jun – Sat 13 Jul 2024
Press night: Fri 21 June 2024
Semi-autobiographical, free-form and explosive, Daniel York Loh’s psychedelic gig-theatrical punk pop rap rock riff on what path to choose, which identity politics to embrace or whether it’s just easier to follow the ‘Dao’ of ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi and dream you’re a butterfly.
Or, be a butterfly dreaming of being Chinese. The British Chinese. So often regarded as a ‘model minority’. Quiet, high-achieving, polite, invisible. But when someone who is British Chinese spends their life taking drugs, getting thrown out of school, claiming benefits, being chased in stolen cars, getting locked up, then rehabilitating onto the stage, where do they fit in? Oh, and they’re not quite Chinese enough anyway.
Kakilang 自己人 (formerly Chinese Arts Now) produces and presents world-class interdisciplinary art from a wide spectrum of Southeast and East Asian voices. The Dao of Unrepresentative British Chinese Experience is by Daniel York Loh, with music by An-Ting 安婷 and directed by Alice Kornitzer.
Tickets go on sale to Members on Wed 22 Nov and on general sale on Fri 24 Nov 2023.