This is about the bad stuff. This is an emergency. This is a clowning show.
Multi-award-winners Ugly Bucket present a blazing inferno of physicality, electronica, and uncompromising personal testimony from the frontlines of the UK’s food banks. As phones ring, guts spill, and sparks ignite faster than they can be extinguished, five clowns search for hope and community in the face of helplessness. Created in association with Liverpool’s Unity Theatre, STUFFED is a roaring call to action amidst the wreckage of a desecrated system.
More than a show, STUFFED is an invitation to gather – an evening of food, electrifying theatre, and empowering discussion illuminating the dark corners and exploring the power of collective action. All performances are captioned and accompanied by a free community meal and local food donation drive.
‘As enraging as it is brilliant. A tour-de-force performance that deserves the nation’s attention.’ ★★★★★ (Opening Nights)
‘You could hear a pin drop in the furthest corner of the room.’ ★★★★★ (North West End)
Performances of STUFFED are accompanied with a free pre show meal & post show panel. Arrive an hour prior to performance time for the meal.
Food Donations
We also invite audiences with the capacity to bring a food donation to STUFFED.
Performed by regulars at The Reader –Illyria in the great outdoors, follow Young D’Artagnan who is desperate to join Athos,Porthos and Aramis as an elite Musketeer of the King’s Guard. But are his swashbuckling credentials sufficient? Find out as the fearless four survive the schemes of Cardinal Richelieu and cross swords with the deadly Milady de Winter.
Illyria’s mission is simple.to create outstandingly enjoyable theatre and make it available for everyone. Illyria has been pursuing this mission for over thirty years, performed for more than a million people, and intend to entertain families across the country for many seasons to come.
We strive to make all our spaces and events as accessible as possible to all, please see our accessibility page to help you plan your visit.
The HandleBards return to the Mansion House Garden for a hilariously high-octane production of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ like you’ve never seen before. Forget the tears and tragedy, our Macbeth is chock full of mishaps, mayhem and mirth.
We all know the story. Mysterious spirits appear,Macbeth and Lady Macbeth plot to kill the king, and things get rapidly out of hand from there…
The HandleBards are anintrepid three-strong troupes pending the summer bringing environmentally sustainable Shakespeare to venues across the UK.
We strive to make all our spaces and events as accessible as possible, please see our accessibility page to help you plan your visit.
A chance to spend a few days exploring drama at the Unity, meet new friends, enjoy games, creating characters, puppetry and more with brilliant practitioners. All abilities welcome.
AGES: 9-12 YEAR OLDS
WHEN: 27 & 28TH JULY | 10.30 -4pm
WHERE: Unity Theatre, 1 Hope Place, L1 9BG
Please purchase your ticket and fill out our application form to sign up!
Apply here
Snow is falling… and Jack Frost is calling! When the wicked Jack Frost sweeps into the kingdom and casts a spell of eternal winter, fountains freeze, forests frost over and the Royal Palace is plunged into chaos! With his icy powers growing stronger by the minute, he’s determined to keep the kingdom frozen forever… But brave Princess Honour won’t let that happen! Teaming up with the hilarious and hopelessly silly, Silly Snowy, she sets off on a magical mission to stop Jack Frost and help her sister, Queen Ellie, learn to control her extraordinary ice powers before it’s too late. Packed with dazzling costumes, spectacular scenery, toe-tapping tunes, laugh-out-loud comedy and plenty of boos for the baddie, FREEZIN’ is the ultimate October half-term treat for the whole family! Will love melt the ice? Will good defeat frost? There’s only one way to find out… Don’t miss the coolest show in town!
Sir Charlie is bold, brave and brilliantly clever. He loves daring quests filled with wily witches, terrible beasties and fire-breathing dragons. And yes, he has a cat called Envelope!
But who is this pint-sized hero and where did his story come from?
Find out in this fully interactive, inventive, and fast-paced family show that brings Sir Charlie’s tale to life while revealing the story behind it. Celebrating the power of children’s imagination and the importance of play, young audiences are invited to become storytellers themselves, helping a troupe of travelling players build a wild adventure. Together, they turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, transform the stage, and journey into mystical realms.
Based on the best-selling picture book by Kristina Stephenson, and created to mark the 20th anniversary of this much-loved, modern-day classic, the show features LIVE music, glorious puppets, interactive storytelling, magical props and more laughs than you can waft away with a stinky sock.
Tomorrow always promised so much for Willy Loman. He’s worked hard, nurtured his dreams, put in the hours and done his best to be well liked. But as the future catches him up, why is he losing himself in yesterday’s memories? And why does tomorrow still seem so far out of reach?
Death of a Salesman is contemporary as well as timeless – an unforgettable drama that speaks to our everyday dreams and the pressures of our changing working world. Seamlessly weaving past and present into one of theatre’s most enduring stories, Death of a Salesman reveals a family at breaking point and a man in conflict with his own sense of worth.
Can Willy and those around him survive? Or will their gleaming tomorrow become a tarnished and tragic today? Presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International: www.mtishows.co.uk
Don’t miss this chilling theatrical adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s “near perfect” (Stephen King) classic ghost story.
From best-selling novel to major hit Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House now takes to the stage in this gripping new production that blurs the line between heart-thumping suspense and the supernatural.
This bold new stage adaptation is tense, unsettling and darkly playful, where Shadows whisper, walls remember and nothing is as it seems… As grief, desire and the dangerous comfort of belonging seep through every wall, one question lingers: is Hill House haunted…or are we?
“A ghost can be a lot of things. A memory, a daydream, a secret, grief, anger, guilt.”
When a group of daring investigators take on the mystery of Hill House, curiosity quickly descends into fear. Experiments plunge into darkness. Strange disturbances ripple through twisting corridors.. As the house tightens its grip, it will leave you on the edge of your seat… and questioning what is real long after the curtain falls.
The Haunting of Hill House, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson, adapted for the stage by Olivier and BAFTA winner Stef Smith and directed by Sky Arts Award winner Martin Constantine.
Three women, all at huge turning points in their lives whilst dealing with the death of their mum. Will their grief consume them or will it set them free? Standing at the edge of their futures, will they fall or will they fly?
Suspicious Minds explores the aftershocks of losing someone and how, over time, we grow around our grief. Moving between fractured memories, humour and heartbreak, the play explores how grief evolves, how we reinvent ourselves, and the strange ways the dead continue to accompany us.
Supported by Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse theatres, Suspicious Minds is written by Ella Greenhill and Directed by Chris Tomlinson. Ella and Chris met at University and within months of knowing each other their mums had both passed away. Suspicious Minds is a dedication to their memories and to friendship.
Play (1962/63) was originally written by Samuel Beckett in English and was first performed (as Spiel) at Theater Ulm in June 1963. It was published in German in July of the same year.
The fate of three characters, who find themselves trapped in three urns with only their heads showing, is forever sealed by an affair in the past. Their constant remembering might indeed seem an understandable obsession were it not for the on/off light of the unseen interrogator – dictating who speaks, and when.
Come and Go is a short play described as a “dramaticule” on its title page, dedicated to publisher John Calder. It was written in English in January 1965 and was first performed in German at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt, Berlin in January 1966. Critics consider this one of Beckett’s most “perfect” plays.
Beckett himself proposed the pairing to director Walter D. Asmus in Germany and they presented the double-bill together at the Schiller Theater in West Berlin in 1977, with Beckett directing Play and Asmus directing Come and Go.
The Unreal Cities Lieben 2026 production is directed by Adrian Dunbar, featuring actors Clara Simpson, Anna Nygh, Orla Charlton, Frank McCusker, with lighting director Michael Cummins.
