There's something about typhoid mary
Living Spit
Irish immigrant. Cook. Amiable host. Killer?
1906. New York City. Talented cook Mary Mallon takes a job preparing delicious meals for yet another high society family, and yet again they begin to fall ill and die.
Coincidence? Mary thinks so. And now she’s put all that nonsense behind her.
She’s cooking three courses for a very special guest tonight. YOU!
That is unless Health Inspector and sanitation expert George Soper can stop her before it’s too late…
Prepare for a toe-tapping, germ-spreading extravaganza where the laughter is as infectious as Mary’s meals. Featuring live cooking on stage from Stu Mcloughlin as the much-maligned Mary Mallon and Lucy Tuck as the germaphobic George Soper, There’s Something about Typhoid Mary is a contagiously entertaining journey through the dark and sinister world of the killer cook, Typhoid Mary, told with Living Spit’s trademark wit, song and silliness.
With live original music, deliciously tempting food which you can really eat (if you dare), gory deaths a-plenty, puerile puppetry and sackfuls of cross-dressing crassness, this promises to be a feverishly funny feast of fun for some of the family.
Just don’t mention the T-word.
30th Sept - 12th Oct 2024
7.30pm £15
Playtime
The Last Baguette
Play-along theatre adventures for 2-6 year olds and their grownups!
Come along for a fun, relaxed participatory theatre session with The Last Baguette theatre company. There’ll be silliness, play-acting, games and music... Expect to play, move, watch and laugh.
Join Ratty and her friends for a fun and gentle introduction to theatre with play-along storytelling, original music, puppetry, theatre games, movement, and lots of imaginative play. Ratty has a lot of ideas but sometimes things don’t go according to plan....can you help her by playing along and working together?
Sessions last 1 hour, and are created for ages 2-6 and their grown-ups. Younger and older siblings welcome
18th October 2024 Gee-Whiskers! – a cooking catastrophe
10.00 & 11.30 am
£8
dracula! one bloody fang after another
Hambledon Productions
Written and Performed by John Hewer
Directed by Bruce Knight
One man. Eighteen roles. Plenty at stake...
Whitby, England, 1897.A haunting, paranormal force has gripped the town.The young Lucy Westenra is taken illand psychiatrist Dr.Seward calls on his mentorProfessor Van Helsingfor his advice. TheProfessor has a perplexing diagnosis–Lucycarries all the symptoms of a vampire’s latestvictim.
So begins a frenzied stab at trying to uncloak Count Dracula as the vampire in their midst. Will Dracula see the light of day? Or will he forever be a pain in the neck? Bram Stoker’s immortal horror story is given an affectionate lampooning in this physical, riotous comedy. Now, that is truly horrific.
26th October 2024
7.30pm £15
"A master of silliness" Review Culture
"Astounding" British Comedy Guide
Little red riding could
Roustabout Theatre
Written and Directed by Toby Hulse Music by Robin Hemmings
Nothing’s quite what you’d expect in the deep, dark woods.
Little Red Riding Hood is no longer little, she no longer wears a hood and she wants to be called by her real name. She’s questioning everything. And so are Mother, the Woodcutter and even the Wolf!
A playful and mischievous retelling of the familiar fairy tale, with original songs and signature Roustabout silliness, that dares you to step off the path and write your own story.
What would you do if you could?
Suitable for everyone aged 4+
27th October 2024
11am & 2pm £8
Roustabout Theatre were last at The Theatre Shop with
Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish:
“Part theatre part brilliant gig… will put a big smile on your children’s faces!” ★ ★ ★ ★ Theatre Weekly
Cracking
Shôn Dale-Jones
When the world goes mad, do we inevitably go mad too?
When Shôn playfully cracks an egg on his mother’s head, he has no idea real-life internet trolls will appear on his doorstep. CRACKING takes on the battle between love and hate, asking what’s funny and where we draw the line. Part stand-up, part theatre CRACKING is a funny, touching and thought-provoking solo performance that sews together fact and fiction into one seamless whole making us wonder what’s real, what’s not and what’s gone wrong.
This award winning play about love and hatred celebrates how searching for connection beats disconnecting. CRACKING is a heart-warming and uplifting comic story about loving in the face of hatred.
1st November 2024
7.30pm £15
“The most generous of hosts… a mesmerising personality… a gifted storyteller… a natural comic”
The Guardian
Nudgement day
Me Monster
ATTENTION SEASIDE TOWNS!
Look at the cities. Full of hopes, dreams, and shops. Now look at your town. Rundown. Deserted. Not like the good old days. It needs a good pep.
That’s why we here at the ministry are getting ready to give you and your seaside town a loving “nudge” in the right direction. The sea.
That’s right. 10 days from now, we’ll rev up the engines on our brand new giant bulldozer and plunge everything and everyone you love into the waves. And what will fill this newly-flattened paradise? Hopes, dreams, and lots and lots of shops.
From Weston-super-Mare based company Me Monster comes a brand new comedy show about a town standing up to levelling down. Buckle up for a tale of chaos, revolution and the final days of the seaside… before it gets pushed into the sea by a giant bulldozer.
How far can a town be pushed before it’s nudged?
9th November 2024
7.30pm £15
“Laugh out loud funny”
“Completely bonkers and utterly brilliant”
Audience feedback
Impromptu shakespeare
Hold onto your doublets, ruffs and trunk hose. The Bard is back! With story and verse improvised in the moment, enjoy a riotous new Shakespeare play every time – performed by Impromptu Shakespeare’s whip smart cast.
Packed with priceless wit, lyrical smarts, romance, and a dash of double-crossing, this leading ensemble do the Bard proud with a brand new one-act hit every time, inspired by audience suggestions.
Impromptu Shakespeare have been a smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, Bristol Shakespeare Festival, and appeared on BBC Shakespeare Live.
WINNER: Best Comedy Event, Buxton Fringe 2021
21st November 2024
7.30pm £15
“Shakespeare from the hip. Ingenious and very funny”
Will Gompertz, BBC Arts Editor
★★★★★ “Simply sublime... side-splittingly hilarious improvised comedy almost worthy of the bard himself” BroadwayBaby
★★★★★ “It’s all of the adjectives for brilliant."
Pocket-Size Theatre
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Burnout
Becky Walsh
Becky Walsh brings you into her comedy kitchen to cook up some vibrant life force, explaining how you can create spoonfuls of energy, avoid the stress juice cocktail and how to know when the spinning plates need smashing.
Burn-out is a humorous and insightful exploration of the topic of burnout and the challenges of balancing a busy lifestyle. Becky’s engaging storytelling and relatable observations make the audience reflect on their own lives and consider strategies for maintaining balance and avoiding burnout.
Proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to We Are Aware, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company based in North Somerset which raises awareness for mental health, suicide prevention and wellbeing and directly supports over 100 individuals with long term mental health conditions
23rd November 2024
7.30pm £15
Living spit's
A Christmas carol
Hard hearted Ebenezer Scrooge hates the season of goodwill. Until a visit from three spirits one
Christmas Eve makes him rethink his... blah blah blah.
We all know the story. We’ve all seen the film(s). But who’s the best Scrooge of all time? Albert Finney? Alistair Sim? Patrick Stewart? Well, just hold your horses there! Because you’ve yet to witness Bristol actor Craig Edwards’ take on Dickens’ mean miserabilist.
He waits, like a coiled spring, ready to bring his unique brand of Midlands malcontentment to the role. And he’s brought Clevedon’s finest, Stu Mcloughlin, along for the ride to play (almost literally)
all the other parts!
Hilarious, tender, idiotic and musically virtuosic by turns, Living Spit’s two-man adaptation of A
Christmas Carol promises a feast of festive foolery that’ll have you splitting your sprouts with
laughter, or your money back!*
*only joking about the “money back” bit
"Christmas tradition laced with really,really good comedy."
Bristol Post
25th November - 7 December 2024 (Not Thurs or Sun)
7.30pm £15
“The jokes are brilliantly bad, the songs are wonderful and all in all the whole performance is hilarious. It's proper fun for all the family, which is exactly what you want at Christmas.“
Bristol 24/7
santa & sven
Stewart Wright with Ben Kirby
COME AND SEE SANTA & SVEN IN THIS ENCHANTING, INTERACTIVE SHOW. PERFECT CHRISTMAS ENTERTAINMENT FOR ALL THE FAMILY.
Now in a staggering 5th year, British comic actor Stewart Wright returns once more to bring the Father of Christmas to life. Experienced at entertaining all ages with his own brand of improvisation and audience interaction, it’s where theatre meets ‘An audience with’ Father Christmas. They’ve been invited to visit Theatre503 in London this December, so only have limited west country dates. He’s reunited once again with the actor and circus artist Ben Kirby as Sven the Reindeer Handler. Guaranteed to bring a sense of fun, laughter and anticipation to all. There’ll be music, sleigh bells, new surprises and bucket loads of Christmas spirit.
They can only bring the gift of laughter, joy and bedtime ruining excitement. They will however do their best to deliver your children’s wishes on Christmas Eve….with your assistance.
1st December 2024
2.30pm & 4pm £10
Mother christmas
Stepping Out Theatre
Written by Mark Breckon
Christmas Eve, and Santa’s 149th wife, Claudia Claus, despairs of him. He’s hooked on video games and hasn’t delivered a present in person for thirteen years, meaning kids now stop believing in him aged three and a half.
When Claudia and her semi-competent elves take over Santa’s long night of deliveries, an encounter with an entitled 9-year-old leads them to start robbing from the rich to give to the poor - trouble ensues until divine intervention leads to an unexpected conclusion
Founded inside a Bristol psychiatric hospital on All Fools' Day 1997 and still going strong, Stepping Out Theatre occupy a unique place in the UK's history of theatre and mental health. It has produced a huge range of work on mental health themes and is open to people who have used mental health services and their allies.
13th December 2024
7.30pm £15
The Four reasons
Somerset Storyfest
Clevedon LitFest presents four evenings throughout the year
celebrating the seasons through spoken word and music
Spearheaded by storyteller Michael Loader and poet Isabel White each evening will bring a host of wordsmiths, musicians and singer/ song writers that delve into, discover and deliver familiar and unknown treasures associated with the time of year.
the four reasons
Winter's Journey
Be enthralled by an evening of music, poetry and traditional stories reflecting the depth, enchantment and solace of winter - with musician Rosemary Yung, poets Tom Stockley, Isabel White and storyteller Michael Loader
19th December 2024
7.30pm £15
A winter's tail
The Last Baguette
The snow is falling and the solstice is approaching. Ratty is getting ready. She wants everything to be really rat-tastic! But will her friends make it through the snow to the winter woodland revels?
Can you help them on their journey? There’ll be excitement, adventure, play-acting, games, music, a splattering of silliness and lots of snow!
Led by The Last Baguette theatre company, A Winter’s Tail is a fun, relaxed play-along theatre adventure. Expect to play, move, watch and laugh.
The show lasts 1 hour including a stay and play session, and is created for ages 2+ and their grown-ups. Younger and older siblings welcome!
The Last Baguette makes entertaining, accessible and eccentric work for family audiences.
Please note that space is limited and both children and their accompanying grown-ups will need a ticket.
23rd December 2024
10am, 11.30am & 2pm £8
In 2025 Theatre Shop will be celebrating it's 10th birthday!
Take a look at what's coming up next year...
joy!
Luke Wright
Following the smash hit success of his Silver Jubilee show (“the best thing he’s done and that’s saying something.” ★★★★★ Telegraph) Luke Wright returns with a new set poems that get to grips with the idea of JOY. Is it possible, as a 42 year old to feel pure unbridled happiness, and what does it look like?
The French novelist Henry de Montherlant said that “happiness writes white” but Wright’s not exactly starting with a blank page. With a mix of the of the comic and the wistful, JOY takes in consumerism, boozing, cancer scares, abseiling vicars, and the joy of language itself. We might have to go down to come up, but we’ll get there in the end. Come let a little joy into your life with a raconteur and wordsmith at the top of his game.
24th April 2025
7.30pm £15
“A winning combination of honesty, humour, ire and wonder. He is at the peak of his powers.”
★★★★★ The Stage
“Breathtaking … with a sharpness and wisdom that lifts the soul, and soothes the battered heart.”
★★★★ The Scotsman