Queens of the Runway
Join a pick ‘n’ mix selection of your favourite RuPaul’s Drag Race UK stars for an exclusive spectacle of side-splitting laughs, breathtaking lip-syncs, jaw-dropping vocals and eye-popping outfits!
Just May (Drag Race UK Series 4), Sister Sister (Drag Race UK Series 2) and special guest host Sheela Vim sashay down the runway to The Atkinson this Autumn!
Age 18+ contains strong language and adult themes
Mark Watson: Before It Overtakes Us
20 years in stand-up for the ‘Taskmaster’ cheeky texts icon, multi-award-winner, YouTube cult figure, Radio 4 favourite and recently ‘Baby Reindeer’ actor: Watson returns after seasons at the Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Edinburgh comedy festivals. A recent encounter with a stranger caused Mark to spend some time pondering the uncertain future facing humanity. He explores this – along with equally pressing matters like the worst word he has ever said in public, the current state of the UK sausage industry, and much more – in a typically frantic and fun-packed new show.
Age 14+
★★★★★ ‘A genius-level comic doing what he does best’ Time Out Melbourne
★★★★★ ‘Quite unlike anything else I’ve seen in almost 20 years of covering the Fringe…witty, warm, perfectly judged’ Telegraph
★★★★ ½ ‘An hour or two of our limited span on Earth in his uplifting, witty company is time excellently spent’ Chortle
★★★★ ‘One of the most genuinely joyous presences in comedy’ The Times
★★★★ ‘This is a stand-up operating at the very top of his game’ Independent
Following critically acclaimed seasons in London and Edinburgh, Paul Merton and Suki Webster, two of the UK’s leading improvisers, present an evening of wonderfully unscripted cutting-edge comedy.
Expect a show full of fast, fabulously funny improvised games, scenes, stories and laugh out loud surrealism as these two masters of Comedy Improvisation join forces with their very special guests to create cascades of laughter and joyful silliness.
Age 14+
Following an Edinburgh Fringe 2025 sell-out, the hilarious Cally Beaton is on tour with Namaste Motherf*ckers – a quick-witted, unexpected and unapologetic insight into life in midlife.
Cally combines her comedic and storytelling prowess with extracts from her provocative, stereotype-busting book of the same name, which has made the Sunday Times’ best seller list.
The show has at its heart her own story of radical reinvention – taking her from meetings in boardrooms to treading the boards, thanks to a chance conversation with the late, great Joan Rivers.
A funny show about a deadly serious subject, Namaste Motherf*ckers is a celebration of and for the female of the species. Invisible no more. The show includes a Q&A and meet-and-greet with Cally (who knows, Jeff the wonder dog may even be there too).
Age 16+
With over 4.5 million social media followers and countless TV appearances under his belt, Pete Firman is the UK’s top comic magician.
Join him for an evening of ‘Tricks & Giggles’, as Pete brings his trademark blend of magic and comedy from the small screen to stages around the UK with this brand-new show. Expect impossible feats, sleight of hand and big laughs from one of magic’s most exciting performers!
As seen on Amazon’s Good Omens, ITV1’s Tonight at the London Palladium and The Next Great Magician, BBC1’s The John Bishop Show and The Sarah Millican Television Programme. He’s probably also popped up on your social media feeds with his mind-boggling and regularly viral magic videos.
Age 11+
Welcome to THE DARK ROOM.
This legendary interactive comedy show fuses improv, crowdwork and gaming to create an insane live-action videogame! Come watch, and if you want – play – the choose-your-own-adventure madness…
Now its 13th year, this high-octane interactive show is the brainchild of comedian & cult leader John Robertson. Filled with stand-up, appalling prizes and more audience chanting than you’d get at a protest, The Dark Room is a gut-busting rock n’ roll comedy experience for everyone who buys a ticket.
Permanently on tour The Dark Room has headlined stages at Glastonbury, PAX, Download Festival, MCM Comic Con, Utrecht International Comedy Festival 2000 Trees, UK Games Expo and Bluedot Festival, and sold out at Edinburgh Fringe, Soho Theatre and hundreds of theatres around the world.
Oh, and videos of The Dark Room roasting videogames and swearing at children keep popping up on people’s social media, which is nice.
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THE DARK ROOM
The crowd is trapped inside an inescapable dungeon with a sadistic videogame boss! Pick increasingly surreal options off the screen and try to escape. If you win – you get money! If you fail – YA DIE! YA DIE! YA DIE!
Now, will you; find the light switch, go North, abandon hope, or be sworn at by a man wearing spiked armour and a lot of leather? (This option is permanently set to “On”)
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Age 15+
In this short exhibition making up part of Abandon Normal Devices Festival in 2011, three artists make it their job to question our beliefs in a time where it has never been more relevant as belief systems around the world seem to be in collapse.
7:30pm & 2:30pm
THE GHOST OF GRAVES END is a perfect post-Christmas not-Panto entertainment. WOMAN IN BLACK meets the high-energy comedic silliness of THE 39 STEPS.
Charles is a penniless poet who takes a position as a tutor to a peculiar orphan boy. The previous tutor left in a hurry, and everyone is reluctant to say why. Afflicted by strange dreams, things that go bump in the night, and increasingly dire circumstance, Charles has to decide whether to stay or get the Hell out of there.
This is a spooky Victorian comedy. Inspired by classic ghost stories of the genre, with its tongue is firmly in its’ cheek, but at the same time, genuinely scary.
Written by Robert Farquhar. Plays include GODS OFFICIAL, INSOMNOBABBLE, BAD JAZZ and THE BIG I AM.
‘A true comic playwright.’ (THE GUARDIAN)
‘Strange, fast and very funny.’ (LIVERPOOL ECHO on INSOMNOBABBLE)
Cast includes Tim Lynskey (Big Wow)
Kirkby can be the town of the future! A symbol of regeneration in the 1970s! You know what Kirkby needs? A ski slope…
Donald Storm is head of Kirkby Council and he’s got an eye on creating a new destination for tourists from around the world. And if he can make a few bob in the process, so much the better. Together with his mate Geoff, a builder who may as well wear a ten-gallon hat, he hatches a plan to use tax-payers money to build a ski slope right next to the M57. Well, I suppose it’s handy for skiing into town.
Standing in their way are a trainee journalist from the Liverpool Echo and her burnt out supervisor. Between them, they take on Don, the council and even the Echo itself by setting up a new free press so they can speak their minds.
Kieran Lynn has written a brand new comedy about one of the wildest chapters in Merseyside history. It’s all downhill from here!
Performance Information
Stalls tickets are available with a meal (served at your table before the show) for an extra £14 for one course and £20 for two courses at evening shows Click here to see our menu or an extra £10 at matinees (scouse or blind scouse only). If you are eating with us please arrive at least an hour before the performance.
Tickets are available for the show alone in stalls, circle and balcony.
BSL performance is on Tuesday 7 July (interpreter Karl Llorca) . Audio Described performance is on Wednesday 8 July (describer Anne Hornsby). To book please contact Box Office on 0151 709 4321 or email lauren@royalcourtliverpool.com.
Captioning will be available for performances for the final week of the show. Please contact Box Office for more details.
Circle and balcony will open at 6.45pm. There are bars in both areas for pre-show and interval drinks. Stalls will be open from 6:00pm.
If you are bringing a large group, every tenth ticket is free. This ticket will be automatically added to your basket on purchase. Meals and building levy must still be paid on your free ticket.
NO BOOKING FEES ON THIS SHOW
Please note – the bar will close 15 minutes before the advertised start time. £2 from every ticket bought will be donated to The Royal Court Liverpool Trust. For more details go to www.royalcourttrust.org
Please contact Box Office to book if you are a wheelchair user as we can only accommodate 5 spaces in our stalls seating area downstairs
A new show from one of the funniest comics working in the UK today, Paul McCaffrey brings us a warm, charming hour of comedy in which he asks: “Modern life is annoying but was it really much better before?”
Star of Live At The Apollo, BBC Three’s Impractical Jokers and Russell Howard’s Good News, McCaffrey was also handpicked to tour the country in support of two of the great stand ups of recent years, Sean Lock and Kevin Bridges.
An award-winning comedian in his own right, he’s headlined at the biggest comedy clubs in the country and performed numerous critically acclaimed Edinburgh shows as well as major music festivals: Reading, Leeds, V Festival, Bestival and Latitude.
Tickets on sale now.