Following a critically acclaimed and sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, BAFTA nominee Yolanda Mercy is set to tour her self-penned work Failure Project across the UK. The tour includes performances at Harrogate Theatre, Harrogate on 13 May, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh on 15 and 16 May, Soho Theatre, London from 27 May to 14 June, and Norwich Theatre Stage Two on 20 June. A press night will take place on 29 May at Soho Theatre, London.
Failure Project is a one-woman show written, directed, and performed by Yolanda Mercy, co-directed by Joseph Barnes Phillips. The show tells the raw and comedic story of a writer whose career takes off just as everything else falls apart, exploring what it means to fail and how to rebuild.
Yolanda Mercy, writer, director, and performer, said: “I make work that holds up a mirror to the lives we hide — centering joy, grief, and identity in ways that let underrepresented voices take centre stage. My art is a love letter to those who rarely see themselves reflected.”
Failure Project has won multiple awards, including the BESTIE award and Summerhall’s Meadows Awards at Edinburgh Festival 2025, and was also nominated for an Offie Award in 2025.
Additionally, there will be a Q&A session on 7 June at Soho Theatre on finding resilience to keep making art, featuring dramaturg Jules Haworth.
Previous notable projects for Yolanda Mercy include writing and directing Quarter Life Crisis, winner of Underbelly’s Untapped Award, which sold out at Bridge Theatre, Soho Theatre, and was performed on BBC 1XTra.
She has been named by the British Council as an Artist to Watch, commissioned by Netflix, BBC, and Channel 4 to write Queenie, and was nominated for a BAFTA for her work creating and writing BBW on Channel 4.
As a black writer, she is passionate about providing new opportunities for other artists. She is a board member of Kinetico Bloco and was the leader of Black Writers Collective. She is now producing artists to create opportunities for others, with her first show Love Me Like a Chai Latte by Sanjay Lago premiering at Edinburgh Festival later this year.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
