Underbelly Festival will build on the success of Udderbelly Festival and London Wonderground – two of the capital’s biggest festivals of their kind over the past eight and five years respectively – taking place on the same site and continuing to present London’s largest programme of affordable comedy, circus, cabaret and children’s shows, in a city-centre festival environment with a great range of street food and one of the largest outdoor bars in London.
Since 2009, just under a million people have bought tickets to shows at Udderbelly Festival and London Wonderground. Subject to licensing and planning, Underbelly Festival will consolidate the company’s two established South Bank festivals into one enormous festival experience, which will become a London hub for the Underbelly brand as the company continues to expand its operations both as a producer of live events and festivals, and of shows and tours.
Highlights of Underbelly Festival’s 2017 season include:
- London premiere of Driftwood from acclaimed Australian circus company Casus (Knee Deep), described as “awe-inspiring” by The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner.
- London premiere of Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit Catch Me (Attrape Moi) from Flip FabriQue, the impossibly athletic Quebecois troupe that “projects an irrepressible spirit of fun” with “acts that don’t seem humanly possible” according to the New York Times.
- UK premiere and longest ever London run from the original cocks of the walk, the cult boylesque cirque-cabaret act known as Briefs, who will unveil their first new show in four years following their internationally acclaimed Second Coming.
Joining them will be a cavalcade of the very finest in stand-up, musical, alternative and sketch comedy, as well as cabaret, circus, puppetry, magic, and family entertainment with something to suit all ages, and shows on every day. Highlights on sale this week include James Acaster, Al Murray, Sara Pascoe, Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Ed Gamble, Angelos and Barry, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Gameshows, House of Burlesque and Stephen K Amos.
Underbelly Directors Ed Bartlam and Charlie Wood said: “We’re incredibly excited about Underbelly Festival, which is the natural progression for our hugely popular Udderbelly and London Wonderground festivals. Consolidating these events into one Underbelly Festival will make for a more joined-up and better festival experience for customers. We also wanted to link our London festivals more closely to the Underbelly brand. As a company we’re growing rapidly, with a number of really exciting new projects in the pipeline, and Underbelly Festival is a huge part of this growth.”
More details can be found here.
Photo Courtesy of Underbelly Ltd.
