Event type: Performance

A show that is as much a part of Christmas as turkey, carols and an inexplicable gift from your auntie, we are delighted to welcome Stocking Fillers back to the Studio! Seven brand new ten-minute festive plays to entertain you at the most wonderful time of the year!

A merry mix of comedy and drama, the Stocking Fillers will make you laugh and cry. They might even make you sing and shout. You’ll feel all Christmassy from your head to your mistle-toes.

These short plays have been written by members of the Royal Court’s writing groups and each evening four incredibly talented actors will bring them to life before your very eyes. Stocking Fillers wraps up seven different shows, so there is something for everyone.

So get yourself down to the Royal Court grotto this Christmas and enjoy the show. You’ll be shouting out for myrrh!

What does it take to become a family?

Mat knows what you think about her. About the way she looks. The way she acts. The way she handed her son to a stranger… and didn’t even cry.

But there’s a lot you don’t know about Mat. And there’s a lot she doesn’t know about herself. So when she gets into a car with a man she’s never met before and unlocks a new kind of life, no one could be more surprised than she is about where her story goes next.

Attachment is a powerful new play by Julia Cranney – a heartfelt Liverpool drama about parenthood, hope and adoption, and the ways that relationships can grow. Developed alongside adoptive families from Merseyside, Attachment is often funny, sometimes poignant and always honest. It’s one woman’s tender, bittersweet story about embracing the fragility of love.

THE SPY NOVEL THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING. NOW LIVE ON STAGE.

For the first time ever, a novel by John le Carré — the undisputed master of the modern spy genre whose works include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Night Manager — is brought to life in a thrilling stage adaptation.

Based on the worldwide bestseller and named in TIME Magazine’s All-Time Greatest 100 Novels, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a riveting journey through the fog-shrouded terrain of Cold War espionage, deception, and moral compromise.

British intelligence officer Alec Leamas is weary, hardened, and ready to come in from the cold. But when Control, the Chief of the Circus, presents one final mission — dangerous, deceptive, and deeply personal — Leamas agrees to stay in the game. Dispatched into enemy territory, he finds his convictions tested and his defences breached by Liz Gold, a quietly defiant librarian whose compassion threatens to thaw his frostbitten heart. And what of veteran spymaster George Smiley? What is his role in the operation?

Following a sold-out run at Chichester Festival Theatre and direct from the West End, this gripping new play written by David Eldridge (Beginning, Middle) and directed by Jeremy Herrin (A Mirror, People, Places & Things) comes to Liverpool Playhouse for 1 week only.

The Dinosaur That Pooped: A Rock Show

When Danny and Dino’s favourite rock band are playing their last ever concert, they go on a quest to get the last two tickets. But with a villainous band manager lurking, nothing goes to plan. Will the band perform? Will Danny rock out? Or will Dino’s rumbling tummy save the day?

Adapted from the number 1 best-selling books by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter, the whole family will have a poopy good time enjoying a brand, new story for the stage. Featuring new songs by Tom and Dougie, a lot of laughs and a whole lot of poo!

THREE SISTERS AND A FUNERAL…

Winter, 1996. The Spice Girls are riding high in the charts, football has failed to come home, and Dolly the Sheep’s been cloned. Meanwhile, on the eve of their mum’s funeral, Mary, Teresa and Catherine return to their Northern childhood home for the first time in years. As they sort through clothes, keepsakes and ghosts of the past, the whisky flows, resentments surface, and long-held silences crack open with unexpected laughter.

Hilarious yet deeply moving, this is a major 30th anniversary revival of Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water, which won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy. A play about families, grief, and the unreliable narratives we inherit. A powerful exploration of how we remember and how much we choose to forget.

An Octagon Theatre Bolton and Liverpool & Everyman Playhouse co-production