Relish Theatre has announced their Spring 2025 season of three queer works across theatres in North London. Adopting the repertory theatre model, the Regeneration Season has been produced with the aim to make creating a repertoire of multiple new works a year more financially viable and sustainable for grassroots independent theatre companies.
Across the season of work, Relish Theatre champion new writing from LGBTQ+ playwrights with the three productions reflecting the experience of LGBTQ+ lives and tackling real-world issues through a queer lens.
Starring Ru Paul’s Drag Race star Scarlett Harlett, Acid’s Reign (Pleasance Theatre, 5 Feb – 1 March) interrogates the climate crisis through a queer lens in a drag cabaret musical. The Climate Queens are ready to fight for their future with the help of a little drag magic, but the hot-headed, cold-hearted Alex Acid has other ideas. Fuelled by desperation, greed and a good dollop of corporate interest, when Acid feels their voice is drowned out, is it easier to just light a fuse and watch the world burn? Acid’s Reign is a new musical queering and querying the climate discourse, exploring the stories we tell about the climate crisis and the compromises we make to tell them.
Further casting includes Gigi Zahir (Crayola) who recently opened for Chappell Roan at O2 Academy Brixton, Joshua Oakes-Rogers returning to the London stage after touring as Melman in the UK stage production Madagascar, drag king Jamie Fuxx, and Musical Comedy Awards finalist Ash Weir.
Evie Fehilly’s new play Oh My Pain, My Beautiful Pain! (Pleasance Theatre, 6 Feb – 1 March) explores the cultural impetus and the pressures on artists to exploit deeply personal stories in their creative pursuits. Natalia makes the type of work people describe as ‘raw’, ‘brave’, and ‘heartachingly vulnerable’, and everyone loves it – critics, audiences, the people who do bookings for TED Talks. Everyone wants more, and she’s promised it to them, only she’s run out of trauma to write about. More specifically, her own trauma. A fast-paced satirical play featuring drag, cabaret and clowning exposing the personal cost of catering to an industry that demands more pain, more truth and more trauma.
The play will be performed by playwright Evie Fehilly, alongside actor and comedian John-Luke Roberts (Have I Got News For You, Nevermind the Buzzcocks), and performer and clown Posey Mehta known for the hit I Am Not A Gorilla at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022.
Previously announced, Naomi Westerman’s Puppy (King’s Head Theatre, 1 – 27 April) is an outrageous, sex-positive, female-centric comedy about dogging, queerness, feminist porn, protest, the patriarchy, and Nick Clegg. Two young women meet late one night in a car park, and immediately fall in love whilst dogging. Exploring the boundaries of their sexualities, they start their own feminist porn company, but when new proposed legislation intent on outlawing female pleasure is introduced, the valiant lovers become fighters in a battle for their rights.
Rob Ellis, Executive Director of Relish Theatre said, “Our mission is to explore as many aspects of the LGBTQ+ perspective as we can, offer opportunities to as many dynamic, exciting, groundbreaking artists as we can, and reach as many people with our stories as we can. All of this whilst doing it sustainably – Regeneration was an opportunity to hit all these targets at once. It gives us an opportunity to share risk and resources over multiple projects, offer artists longer contracts, and try to build audience engagement over a shorter period of time. It’s a challenge for us an organisation, as its nothing like we’ve ever done before, but it’s exciting as well.”
Playwright Evie Fehilly said, “I’m incredibly excited about Oh My Pain, My Beautiful Pain! being included in this season of work. Relish have been incredibly supportive to me, even letting me write a totally different play than the play I promised. I wrote them a raw, confessional show about my personal trauma and then when they told me it was going to be staged I turned around and offered them a totally different play. They have allowed me to offer a new view on the work I originally created, interrogating the impulses that led me to want to share it with the world in the first place. In a sense, a regeneration of work that never even saw the stage.”
Founded in 2015, Relish Theatre is one of London’s premier organisations for sustainable new writing theatre productions. Relish Theatre consistently champions the best new writing from LGBTQ+ playwrights. Their works reflects the authentic experience of LGBTQ+ lives, tackles real-world issues and topics, and celebrates the joy, laughter and love of the community. They provide a platform for the most exciting, creative and talented early-career artists, from all over the country, to develop their craft and share their work with others. They strive to ensure their work reaches new audiences, who can engage and relate to their stories. Relish Theatre creates their work sustainably, and they push the conversation of environmental theatre-making as far and as hard as they can.
The Pleasance Theatre Islington has been one of the most exciting Fringe theatres in London since it opened its doors in 1995, providing a launch pad for some of the most memorable productions and renowned practitioners over the past two decades, staying true to the Trust’s mission of providing a platform for the talent of the future. This year-round programme compliments their world-renowned operations in Edinburgh. Since opening in 1985, the Pleasance has become renowned for delivering an inspiring programme year on year that uniquely embodies the spirit of the Festival Fringe. Acid’s Reign and Oh My Pain, My Beautiful Pain! are produced in association with Pleasance Theatre Trust.
