The award-winning production KINDER heads to the Brighton Fringe this May following acclaimed runs at festivals around the world.
Fresh from winning The List Festival’s Best LGBTQIA+ Award at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the show arrives at The Lantern Theatre for a limited run.
Created and performed by Ryan Stewart, KINDER blends monologue, drag, lip-sync and rapid-fire costume changes to explore childhood, gender ideology and the global rise of reactionary politics.
Chaos erupts when drag-clown Goody Prostate discovers that their scheduled ‘reading’ is actually a children’s storytime hour.
Forced to improvise, they spiral into an interrogation of nostalgia, memory and the realities of growing up.
The production examines how stories and language can be twisted or weaponised, drawing inspiration from ongoing debates around drag storytimes.
Ryan Stewart, writer and performer of KINDER, comments, “We’re incredibly excited to finally be touring our newly reimagined production of KINDER, following an incredible successful award-winning Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2025. Since first premiering this show in 2024, the world has become a far more hostile place to navigate and live freely as a queer person, and we are seeing history beginning to repeat itself through the fascistic leanings of what used to be proudly democratic governments.”
“This is a work that is centred on forgotten stories, memory, and childhood, and it invites us all to imagine a queer futurity for generations to come that is centred on community, rather than a rugged individualism that has fostered division for so long.”
Drawing on Stewart’s experiences growing up queer and neurodivergent, KINDER transforms a children’s story hour into a riotous, timely theatrical meltdown.
The show has earned five-star reviews praising its blend of comedy, rage, poignancy and political urgency.
KINDER runs at The Lantern Theatre, Brighton, from 2 to 7 May 2026, with performances at 5pm on 2 and 4 May and at 9pm from 5 to 7 May.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
