Event type: Theatre

7:30 & 3:00pm With their mistress away, two male maids plunge into their darkest fantasies, in a twisted game, simmering with sexual tension, unravelling questions of modern slavery, gender identity, and power. The result is an absurd world where boundaries between reality and performance dissolve.

Directed by Elinor Randle, this production will fuse opera, spectacle and movement in a lavish set designed by Ashley Shairp. Samuel Perez Duran and Cameron McKendrick star as the maids, with Jane Hogarth reprising her celebrated role as the Mistress from the 1992 staging.

Bringing stalwarts of Liverpool’s theatre scene together from the last 40 years, this is the former Artistic Director’s final foray into making art at Unity Theatre.

Themes of oppression, isolation, and incarceration will be explored through a participatory programme with Afloat, a company of refugees and asylum seekers led by Phoebe McSweeney.

Workshops with care-home residents will create handmade flowers, displayed in the Unity foyer. Translation by David Rudkin. Produced by That Theatre Group.

Opening the evening is Chile’s electrifying La Charawilla, the musical persona of Daniela Sepúlveda, whose radical blend of ancestral Chilean folk traditions and punk-infused energy promises to captivate.

Eating Myself is a bold, sensory celebration of identity, food, and culture. The show is a deeply personal solo performance by Peruvian theatre-maker Pepa Duarte. A multisensory experience that will stir your emotions, challenge perceptions, and leave both your heart and appetite full.

8pm

They’ve lost the plot, the presents, and maybe even their pants, and nobody can really remember what the hell Christmas is about. Peace on earth? Party hats? Power ballads? Chest hairs? Chestnuts? Who knows?
Join us as your holiday heartthrobs strut, stumble and strip through the falling snow in seasonal disarray in a ridiculous yet fabulously camped-out search for what Christmas is all about.

Run time: 19.30 – 21.00

A girl walks down a blossom-lined street, a knife clutched in her pocket. She’s on her way to confront the man she believes killed her mother… ‘Batman (aka Naomi’s Death Show)’ is a live, choose-your-own-adventure story that also happens to be true. Come along to play ‘Death Bingo’ and ‘Serial Killer Family Fortunes’ and to sit shiva – collectively mourn – for the dead, and to immerse yourself in a world of extreme art. Ultimately you get to decide the direction the performance takes: will you choose mercy or revenge?

This is a true-crime satire, grounded in performer Naomi Westerman’s own experiences of parental death. Join her to work out whether love will save us or condemn us. The performance (60 minutes) will be followed by a panel discussion (30 minutes) exploring how the science of death can help us mourn. Writer and Performer, Noami Westerman will be joined by Kendra Roger (Table 11) and Dr Georgina Robinson (University of Durham) to discuss death, technology and communal grieving.

Please note that this event will involve discussions of death (including animal death), homelessness, and references to child abuse.

 7:30pm
By Sam Freeman

This is a story about passive aggressive letter writing, early morning jet washing and making a house a home. It’s about those who live, laugh and love meters from us, but who really, we barely know at all.

A couple run through the rain to catch a bus.
A man stares at a blank laptop screen in desperation.
A woman opens an envelope to find a photo inside.
A new house on a new street with new neighbours.

A roughly seventy-two minute show, read from a little black book, by a scruffy, bearded, glasses-wearing man in a red check shirt and black jeans who does not own a pressure washer.  A new storytelling show** by Sam Freeman (Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed, Every Time I Close My Eyes).

**This show has minimal references to dogs.

A Unity Theatre Fundraising Event: All of the money from this event will go to supporting the work of Unity Theatre.