<img src='' title='Event Category: Theatre' alt='' id='templ_icon_' width='' height='' /> Event Category: Theatre

1985. Suburban Illinois. Saturday Morning. Five teenagers walk into detention. 

A Brain. An Athlete. A Basket Case. A Princess. A Criminal. 

You know the story. Except… there was someone else there. 

Some time later, in a pub function room in the UK, the forgotten sixth student from that day is throwing a reunion. The buffet’s out, the boombox is ready, and any minute now – the others will walk through the door. 

Part motion picture homage, part existential crisis; this one-man show is a funny, heartfelt trip through teenage memories, the power of nostalgia and the things we tell ourselves to feel like we mattered, seen through the lens of the John Hughes classic that defined a decade. 

Don’t You Forget About Me is a percussive and poignant love letter addressed to anyone who’s ever wished their life was a little more like a movie. 

WhatsOnStage and Multi OffWestEnd Award Nominated David Shopland returns to the stage following his 2023 critically acclaimed ★★★★★ hit Raising Kane. 

Directed by award winning theatremaker Roann Hassani McCloskey. 

Produced by Fake Escape, whose recent hits include Cul-de-Sac (Omnibus Theatre), The Boy (Soho Theatre), and the Off Broadway sensation Saving Britney (SoHo Playhouse NYC, Other Palace, UK Tour).
This production tours the UK throughout 2026 and 2027 after a sell-out engagement at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Proteus presents 

The Law of Mayhem

“It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? That we should find each other.” 

The year is 1949, and Roberta Cowell; racing driver, RAF pilot and ‘It’ girl, meets Michael Dillon; a ship’s doctor who pursued Buddhism into the high Himalayas. Together they will change the course of British transgender history. Yet after just three short years, they never speak again. 

Separated by time and space, Michael and Roberta meet for one last impossible encounter, to find out if the thing that brought them together was the same thing that broke them apart – The Law of Mayhem. 

Joyful, uplifting and full of heart, Award-winning Basingstoke theatre company Proteus, and acclaimed writer Tabby Lamb bring the extraordinary lives of trans-trailblazers Michel Dillon and Roberta Cowell to the stage for the first time. 

Using circus as a physical vocabulary, The Law Of Mayhem tells the story of two lives, inextricably entwined, that made their mark in history and forged a path for generations to come. 

Canvey Rock Productions and Cahoots presents   
NOT THE BENNY HILL SHOW  
By Jonathan Maitland 
Based on a true story 

1989: Benny Hill, Britain’s most successful comedian ever,  is called to a meeting by ITV’s Controller of Comedy. He’s expecting a warm welcome: his show has, after all, made the channel hundreds of millions of pounds. But he’s in for a shock. Complicating matters further, he then gets trapped in the Controller’s office with a feminist secretary and an angry young comedian. The world, Benny discovers, is changing. But can he?   

An entertaining, provocative and timely play about the birth of woke.    

STARRING KEITH ALLEN AS THE CONTROLLER  

Director: Dugald Bruce Lockhart 

The Production Garden in association with Cube Room Productions presents an evening of Eric and Ern with Ian Ashpitel and Jonty Stephens. From the Olivier nominated duo behind the hugely celebrated critically acclaimed West End hit Eric & Little Ern.

This is a show for all the family from 8 to 80!

A brilliant homage crammed full of renditions of those famous comedy sketches, that hits all the right notes! Coming to Wilton’s, celebrating the Centenary year of the nations favourite comedy legends Morecambe & Wise!

From Greig’s Piano concerto to Mr Memory, “Arsenal!” It’s a show full of Morecambe and Wise’s most loved routines, songs and sketches.

This wonderful show evokes memories of times when whole families would huddle around the telly to watch those fantastic Christmas specials

.You’ll feel you’ve experienced the real thing and been taken back to a world of sunshine and laughter.

As seen on The One show BBC1 and The Alan Titchmarsh Show ITV.

Are you ready for a whirlwind of feathered bonnets, dramatic letter-writing, and deeply repressed feelings? Then look no further than Jane Austen’s classic tale, Sense and Sensibility. 

When the kind-hearted and newly impoverished Dashwood sisters—pragmatic Elinor and passionately romantic Marianne—are forced to relocate to a tiny cottage, they find themselves navigating the treacherous social waters of Georgian England. Looking for a man with a pocket full of coins and a house with at least three pillars on the front; balls, banquets and proposals await! 

A glorious, witty romp through emotional extremes, foolish societal satire, dazzling ballroom dances, and some rather joyful multi-rolling. Packed full of music and comical antics, this is an Austen you do not want to miss. 

‘A Pure Joy from Start to Finish’ Bath Radio 

John Milton’s Paradise Lost: A story of sin, sex and sedition.

Milton stripped of the academic dust and brought roaring into the present.

In this electrifying one-man performance, Royal Opera Chorus Director William Spaulding takes on the extraordinary density, rhythm and power of John Milton’s epic poem, transforming its famously complex language into something immediate, visceral and alive. Through musicality, physicality and theatrical intensity, the words become an experience rather than a text to decode.

At its centre is Satan: charismatic, rebellious, seductive and spectacularly self-confident. Milton’s depiction was ground-breaking – a villain who could command the attention of the reader and at times, seem more compelling than the heroes opposing him. Centuries later, that fascination with the politics of power feels remarkably current.

This bold new staging is directed by Olivier Award-winning director Keith Warner, whose internationally acclaimed career spans more than 150 opera, theatre and musical productions across twenty countries, including major houses from London and Vienna to Bayreuth, Tokyo and San Francisco.

Spaulding brings his formidable musical authority to the performance, drawing on his distinguished career as a conductor of choruses and orchestras across Europe. Together, Spaulding and Warner turn one of English literature’s most intimidating masterpieces into an urgent piece of live theatre.

Beneath the poetry and theology, Paradise Lost is a story of rebellion and the power of knowledge. Of temptation and the dangerous allure of defiance. Sin. Sex. Sedition. Milton’s great epic has never felt more immediate – or more powerful.

When Louise Glück died in October 2023, aged 80, she left behind her thirteen volumes of poetry, stretching from 2021 back to 1968 – a remarkably various sequence, crowned in 2020 with the Nobel Prize for Literature.

At its midpoint are two collections, Meadowlands (1996) and Vita Nova (1999), published consecutively, whose subject is the end of a marriage. The poems of Meadowlands speak from within that experience, faithful to its confusion. They speak in many voices: long-suffering, impatient, reconciled, unreasonable, tender, petty, humorous, desperate, angry, mournful, desolate. Vita Nova is written in the aftermath, reflecting from a greater distance, and facing forward as well as back. In both volumes we encounter daily bickering, minutely notated as passionate aria; household pets recast as household gods; the whole prose of married life whittled into lines as spare and essential as Greek myth. Together these volumes form a kind of diptych, as attentive to the surface and the soul as any of the great marriage studies of their era – hilariously, painfully accurate.

Dead Poets Live are delighted to be returning to Wilton’s this autumn to present these two collections together, and to give the miraculous and distinctive voice of these poems the appreciation it deserves.

Photo credit: Katherine Wolkoff

Presented by Seabright Live
Written and performed by Richard Marsh
Directed by Hal Chambers 

Named one of The Telegraph’s best shows of the 2026 Fringe

This feel-good comedy brings you the beloved characters, romance and action of Tom Cruise’s aerial blockbuster, alongside the heartfelt story of father and son superfans who can’t agree on anything except their favourite film. 

Can Maverick and best friend Goose beat Iceman to the Top Gun trophy? Can instructor Charlie get a drink without anyone singing at her? Can one Fringe First-winning poet / nerd re-enact the movie’s signature dogfights – alone? 

This very unauthorised parody marks 40 years since Top Gun‘s cinema release – essential viewing for Top Gun veterans and rookies alike. 

From the creative team behind the global smash hit Yippee Ki Yay. Written and performed by Richard Marsh – London poetry slam champion, BBC Audio Drama Best Scripted Comedy Drama award-winner and fighter pilot (one of these is untrue). Directed by Hal Chambers with movement by Emma Webb, this show will take your breath away.  

Two hearts. One fate. A timeless love reborn.

The Duke’s Theatre Company presents Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, a bold reimagining of the iconic tragedy directed by Joseph Pitcher. Pitcher’s acclaimed credits include Gypsy (UK Theatre Award for Best Musical Production) and My Fair Lady at The Mill at Sonning, and Macbeth at the Salomons Theatre, Tunbridge Wells. Returning to the company following Macbeth (2025), this vibrant production also features original music by composer Rob Millett (Rambert Dance Company and The Royal Opera House, The National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe).  

Blending dynamic staging, evocative sound, and the enduring power of Shakespeare’s verse, this retelling illuminates the passion, peril, and youthful intensity at the play’s core, inviting audiences to rediscover the world’s most famous star-crossed lovers.