the lion and unicorn theatre 23rd - 28th may 2022

Welcome to London’s freshest multi-arts festival, from the OFFIE winning ChewBoy Productions.

From May 22nd - 28th, we took over the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in Kentish town with some of the weirdest, whackiest flavours from early-career companies, dynamic new writers of all ages and bold screen work from some of the most exciting filmmakers in town.

We worked in association with Gutter Street, Visability Film Festival, Proforca Theatre and Yellow Hat Productions amongst others to support the creation of integrated live performance events with a focus on the surreal, the abstract and experimentation.

For a limited time you can watch the full festival at the link below. So, buckle in friends. This one was a bigg’un…

WATCH THE DIGITAL FESTIVAL HERE

Welcome to ChewFest | 19:30 - 19:55

Start your ChewFest experience right with an introduction to the festival from ChewBoy’s co-founders Hal Darling and Georgie Bailey. Join us for a multimedia taste-test through space, time and existence to learn more about what the week has in store for you, audience member.

Stage the Page | 20:00 - 21:30

5 performers. 6 new plays. Enjoy some of the freshest new writing on the block from a wonderful array of early-career playwrights, performed by a troupe of 5 performers in a rehearsed reading event like no other.

Featuring Premieres of:

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The Adaptation Game | 19:30 - 21:00

Join Visability Film Festival for ‘The Adaptation Game’ - an evening of transmedia storytelling, in association with Yellow Hat productions, as part of Chewfest 2022 at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre.

This experimental evening marks a new chapter for Visability, one where they'll be breathing new life into some of their favourite films of the past two years by adapting them for the stage!

As usual, they’ll be shining a light on some vital topics, continuing the company's commitment to using film (and theatre) as a tool for positive societal change. So, strap in for an innovative, one of a kind evening.

The Magic Number | 19:30 - 21:00

Threeeeee, is a magic numberrrrr!

On Wednesday, we’ll be bringing you 3 extract performances from 3 brand-new companies creating whacky, experimental work.

The companies joining us at ChewFest 2022 are international theatre company Borderline Confrontational, Muddy Puddles who focus on bringing life to queer stories and new-writing company White Noise Theatre.

Featuring Premieres of:

13 Children by Borderline Confrontational

Thin Air by Muddy Puddles

PlantGays by White Noise Theatre

Back 2 Back | 19:30 - 21:00

Long-time collaborators ChewBoy Productions and Proforca Theatre team up to bring you a revival of the multi-award-winning surreal comedy TETHERED, the acclaimed Before Feel by James Lewis and a brand-new play from David Brady, By Your Side in a triple-bill evening of innovative theatre.

Note: One ticket will give you access to watch all 3 of these fantastic plays.

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Gutter Street Nights | 19:30 - 21:30

Gutter Street is a theatre company and artist collective creating original plays and stories all set in their interconnected theatrical world. They create work where the fantastical meets the gritty, reflecting our own world through a cracked and stained mirror.

Gutter Street Nights is an event where five creatives are challenged to write either a song, speech or poem based around a specific theme. The nights are open to performers and non performers alike, with an aim to create a comfortable, supportive environment for everyone to share their work and try something new. Join us for a night of new writing, a little pub quiz and if you fancy a go, jump up on our open mic at the end!

Fondue with Chew: A Finale Event Thing | 19:30 - 21:00

To culminate the festival, we’ll be providing you with an evening of anarchy. Chaos. Good vibes and fun. 'Cus that’s what we all need right now, right?

Join Georgie and Hal from ChewBoy Productions and some very special guests to celebrate live performance's return, to chat about everything and anything, and maybe even try and break some world records…all with chocolate fondue.

working in association with...

GUTTER STREET NIGHTS

PROFORCA THEATRE

VISABILITY FILM FESTIVAL

YELLOW HAT PRODUCTIONS

meet our creatives...

ChewBoy team

Lucy Betts | Director & Festival Producer

meet our creatives...

Stage the Play | Monday 23rd

Yaz Nin | Writer | Who cut off their tales/tales?

Yaz Nin is a writer and playwright. Born in Kibris raised in Tottenham/Haringey, Yaz is interested in exploring political and feminist narratives.

Who cut off their tales/tales? | Two children in an unnamed country set a glue trap and wait for feed. A short political play with a cry for displaced and persecuted Muslims across the globe.

Jaisal Marmion | Writer | Skin

Jaisal is a Bristol-based playwright and graduate of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He moved to the UK after growing up in Goa, India. His work is primarily concerned with questions of race, multiculturalism and stories related to the Indian and Irish diasporas.

Skin | Skin is a piece about diversity in theatre and my feelings about it as a person of colour. It’s about the importance of affirmative action, but also the paradoxical way in which it forces artists of colour to perform their identity; the sense that you’re almost commodifying or fetishising your difference for public consumption.

Caroline Lezny | Writer | Yarn

Caroline Lezny is a writer for performance based in London where she is pursuing her MFA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Caroline is a magna cum laudegraduate of the University of Notre Dame where she served as Artistic Director for the Pasquerilla East Musical Company.

Yarn | She is trying to get rid of him without unraveling. He is tangled up in her. Loneliness, grief, and a wool-knitted house.

Shez Chung-Blake | Writer | Thor of Trellick Tower

Shez Chung Blake is a poet, writer, teacher and theatre maker based in London. Inspired by the vibrant lights and extremes of her home city, Shez Chung Blake’s writing reflects and articulates the frustrations of navigating London life. She was long listed for the New Voices in Poetry prize in 2019 and is a recent graduate of the Theatre 503 Spring Writers programme for Playwrights.

Thor of Trellick Tower | A thought- provoking short play about women’s rights, male dominance, superheroes and the realisation that sometimes our dreams reveal more to others than we are ready to process to ourselves.

It’s Tuesday and the children are late out of class - again. At the gates two friends pass the time by unpicking a dream from the night before. Surreal fantasy? Frustrated sex dream? The conversation quickly becomes a juggling act of negotiating school gate rivalries, tardy supply teachers and suppressing the unsettling nightmare reality lurking in tower.

Lee Lauren | Writer | Private View

Lee is a South London based writer and theatre-maker. In 2021 she graduated from RCSSD with an MA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media. She has had short works performed at the Ivy House, Peckham Springs, RCSSD studio, Above the Stag, Wimbledon Book Festival and the Golden Goose.

Private View | Millie meets Guy and he seems nice. Then Guy takes Millie to his place of work and things quickly sour.

meet our creatives...

The Adaptation Game | Tuesday 24th

Sam Briggs | Visability Co-Director

Sam is the founder and co-director of Visability Film Festival. As a writer he has contributed to award winning music videos, had two short films funded by South West Surrey Domestic Abuse Outreach Service, and written extensively for immersive fiction on mobile app. Having undertaken a university module in Adaptation & Transmedia Storytelling, he's excited to use this knowledge to bring some of Visability's best short films to the stage.

Maddie Gray | Yellow Hat Co-Founder

Maddy is the co-founder and co-artistic director of Yellow Hat Productions. She trained as an actor and theatre maker and her performer credits include The Batman, Doctors, Riches, Endless Second and Hot Lane. Her directorial credits include The Pillowman and Wind in the Willows. As an assistant producer for the Jolly Good Production Company she has worked on various theatre and filmed projects but also works as an independent producer on short films.

Kieran Stringfellow | Writer/Director | Bulldog

Kieran is a writer/director based in Manchester and is the founder of Block B Films. His latest short film, Tow Truck was made with the support of the BFI Network, with funds from The National Lottery.

BULLDOG | After spending the night in a cell, a rough sleeper has a score to settle - Using the harsh realities of homelessness in the UK to challenge our expectations of rough sleepers.

Adaptation | Set after the events of the Bulldog film, Property Investor Louise looks for a rough sleeper she can pay to carry out an unsavoury act.

Héloïse Ferlay | Animator | To The Dusty Sea

Héloïse is a multi-award winning French animator, currently working as an animation director at Passion Pictures Paris.

To The Dusty Sea | Amidst the fallout of complex family trauma, young siblings Malo & Zoe try desperately to catch their Mother’s eye.

Adaptation | Now all grown up, Zoe & Malo continue their strained sibling relationship as they await a visit from their distant Mother.

Cambyse Tabatabay | Filmmaker | Glaucon

Cambyse is a Swiss filmmaker and photographer, graduating from the CFMS in Lausanne, Switzerland. His first short film, Glaucon, was the winner of the VFF Best Experimental Film award, 2021.

Glaucon | An expressionist re-imagining of Plato’s The Republic

Adaptation | A live physical theatre performance utilising mask work to build on the themes explored in the film.

meet our creatives...

The Magic Number | Wednesday 25th

Borderline Confrontational

Borderline Confrontational is an international theatre company dedicated to pushing boundaries both literal and metaphorical. Founded by an American based in the UK, we endeavour to have as international a team as possible working on our productions. We make theatre and work that asks the audience to confront something within themselves or societally. Productions include Fugitive Songs and We Are The Authors Of Our Own Story (an original cabaret) in Birmingham, Godspell at the Edinburgh Fringe, and Glorious, but Brief (a world premiere) in London. We proudly utilise all-female production teams for all of our shows.

Play Synopsis:

13 Children is a one-woman show that asks simply: what is the purpose of sex, procreation or pleasure? With movement, music, projections and audience interaction, performer Amelia Sciandra takes you through her sexual history with laughter and tears and asks you to look inside and consider your own.

Muddly Puddles

Muddy Puddles Theatre is a small creative theatre company focussing on writing forward-thinking, contemporary, queer stories and bringing them the life they deserve. Behind this previous bold opening line, are two teenagers who decided to start writing in their bedrooms just to see what could happen, which slowly manifested itself into experiences more rewarding than they could’ve imagined. We are committed to keeping our work as grounded (or shall we say as 'muddy') and authentic as possible, whilst reaching out to all corners of our young and child-like imaginations. What's most important to us, is that we are passionate about the stories we tell; they mean a lot to us, and we would imagine they would to a lot of queer youth too.

Play Blurb: Two teenagers meet at a train station in 2023's Southern England and begin to converse, only to find out that their lives are more interwined than they ever could've imagined. Through displays of gaming, technology, and lust, we see the scary reality of what today's youth are set to face. Written by two young creatives, this play is a passion project with heart and energy.

White Noise Theatre

White Noise Theatre is a collaborative new writing company co-founded by two Warwick graduates and emerging theatre-makers, Rebecca James and Selwin Hulme-Teague. We create new and exciting work from scratch with fellow emerging creatives; challenging traditional theatre-making practices with our evolving collaborative process. We’re a bit obsessed with people and their inner lives; our work typically explores the hidden, complicated, and strange parts of life.

Previous shows include: our online show Talk to Me, and our podcast Three Three Three.

Play Blurb:
PlantGays

Definition: A gay person that has many plantains/or loves plants

“plant gays are the best type of gays”

Written and devised in collaboration with emerging queer theatre makers, PlantGays is an informal, light-hearted poke at the quirks of the younger queer generation, exploring the connections that grow and blossom when queerness and nature intersect.

meet our creatives...

Back 2 Back | Thursday 26th

David Brady | Director

David is an Offie-Nominated Writer, Director, and Artistic Director from Coventry based in London. For Proforca credits include: If I Go (2016) Saucy Jack & The Space Vixens (2016), The Importance of Being Earnest (2017), Reading Gaol (2017-18), Feel (2018-19) Feel More (2018-2020), At Last (2019), AAAAA [FiveA] (2021), the Offie Nominated Lately (2021) & the forthcoming Flashbang (2022)  Other credits include Getting Rid (2018) for Actor Awareness, work for Far Cry Theatre (2019) and Associate Producer of BLUEBIRD (2018) and “2nd Coming Again” (2018 - 2019). He has directed work at YORAC, Theatre N16, The King's Head Theatre, Hertford Theatre, Upstairs at the Western, The Space & The Albany Theatre Coventry (amongst others). David is also the Artistic Director of the Lion & Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town and was awarded a special commendation for services to Pub Theatre in 2021 by London Pub Theatres Magazine.

Lauren Ferdinand | Performer | Before Feel

Lauren trained at Rose Bruford and the National Youth Theatre. Since graduating, she has worked mainly in screen projects, most recently playing Lauren David in the pilot episode for OUT OF BOUNDS. Lauren is an Associate Artist of Proforca Theatre Company. Previous work includes originating the role of ALF in LATELY (2021/22 - Lion & Unicorn Theatre, Albany Theatre & UK Tour).   Previous theatre credits include, BEST SERVED COLD (Leicester Curve), WHITE MILLIONAIRE EMMAS, GHOSTS and CLEANSED.

Kieran Dee | Performer | By Your Side

Kieran is an award-winning writer and actor. He learned stagecraft at The Young Actors Company before becoming a core member of The Craft Ensemble.
He is a founding member of MoonLoaf Theatre, currently associate artists of The Lion and Unicorn Theatre. His work with MoonLoaf includes, playing Nathan in Doubt, written and directed by Grace Millie, as well as writing and performing in award winning shows Hematoma and TIFO.
Kieran has worked with AlterEgo for many years as a performer and has recently moved into directing for the company.

meet our creatives...

Gutter Street Nights | Friday 27th

London Foxes (Lucas Jones)

London Foxes is the first solo project of artist Lucas Jones. Experimenting with a mostly improvisational approach to song writing and production. Raw and minimalistic with an intentionally home-made feel, London Foxes music is an observation on the nuances and beauty that colours life; And is sure to resonate with the nostalgia and eyes-to-the-future hope residing within all who discover it.

Jack Hart

Jack Hart is a non binary musician, playwright and actor from Bolton. Jack’s first two singles ‘I Know It’ and ‘Nevermind, I’m Coming Home’ are available on all streaming platforms now. They love to create spaces for people to engage with difficult topics and feel less shit. Jack’s play Man Down was produced by Exploding Whale Theatre at The Actor’s Centre, Covent Garden in 2019 and they are currently working on a musical about their quest for success and the shit that goes with that. Whether it’s a play or a song Jack’s work often deals with mental illness, neurodiversity and queerness.

Gabriel Akamo

Gabriel is a Nigerian-British poet, actor, facilitator, and creative producer. Drawing on his background in both theatre and Philosophy, his writing currently explores faith, relationships, and his overlapping identities.
His previous commissions include the Royal Academy of Arts, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Southbank Centre, and he has been a speaker at Gresham College. Previous festival performances include Lovebox, Bestival, and Festival Kometa in Riga, Latvia. He has been published in a number of anthologies, released his debut pamphlet, ‘At the Speed of Dark’ in 2020, and will appear in this year’s forthcoming anthology, Before Them, We, by flipped eye publishing. He is an alumnus of Barbican Young Poets and National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, and a former Roundhouse Resident Artist.