Beryl Cook’s joyful and exuberant paintings are known and loved throughout the world, but little is known of the very private person behind them.

Instantly recognisable, her paintings depict characters that are fun-loving, uninhibited and larger than life. But in real life, the artist’s own personality was very different.

In a stunning coup de théâtre, Beryl Cook: A Private View offers a rare glimpse into Beryl’s private thoughts as she completes one of her bold and playful oil paintings live on stage.

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Beryl Cook: A Private View

Finborough Theatre

The Silver Cord

Diary of a Ukrainian Madman, or The Innocence of the Pangolins

The UK premiere of The Trumpeter, a new solo play from Ukraine, starring Kristin Milward, following her success in the internationally acclaimed Pussycat in Memory of Darkness, opens at the Finborough Theatre for a four week limited season.

Trapped beneath the Azovstal steelworks during the siege of Mariupol in Spring 2022, the battered remnants of Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade endure the never ending barrage of Russian heavy artillery.

The Trumpeter

To commemorate his centenary, Kafka, written and performed by Jack Klaff, receives its first production in over 30 years at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre, for a four week limited season. Kafka was buried in Prague on 11 June 1924, and this production opens 100 years later to the day.

Franz Kafka – even more than James Joyce – is still the presiding genius of experimental storytelling in the West.

Kafka

Combining storytelling, songs, poetry and physicality with a rich soundscape of live fiddle music and effects, Matthew Zajac’s stunning play about his Polish father has entranced over 40,000 people, playing in a huge variety of venues in twelve countries, from sold-out runs in prestigious theatres in cities such as New York, Adelaide, Kyiv, Malmo, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Brussels, Dublin, Lublin, Lviv, Copenhagen and Berlin to tiny village halls in the Scottish Highlands. Its many awards include a Scotsman Fringe First, The Stage Best Solo Performer Award and Best Actor at the CATS (Critics Awards for Theatre In Scotland) Awards.

The Tailor of Inverness

The European premiere of Van Badham’s acclaimed black comedy Banging Denmark opens at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre for a four-week limited season on Tuesday, 16 April 2024.

A biting and hilarious new “rom-com” by one of Australia’s leading social commentators (and former Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre), Van Badham. Feisty feminist academic Ishtar is so broke she’s living in the photocopy room, following a hefty out-of-court settlement to a toxic male ‘troll’. All she has left is her pride.

Management consultant Jake is high on life, with a lucrative side gig as a misogynist podcaster and pick-up artist. Until his latest crush – gorgeous Danish librarian Anne – fails to fall for his usual ‘game’.

Banging Denmark

1973, a public lavatory. Nicky shaves his head, watched by an older man.

Publicly, Nicky is a skinhead. And a Neo-Nazi. But right now, in this place, that doesn’t matter.

He’s not the first man Nicky meets in a public toilet, and he won’t be the last…

Spanning twenty years and inspired by a true story, Foam examines the nature of identity and the consequences of right-wing extremist ideology against the backdrop of London’s skinhead and gay scenes of the 1970s and 1980s.

Foam 

Anne is tired. Tired of menopause. Tired of working in a dying NHS. And tired of her lazy sexist Daily Mail reading husband Don. But they’ve been together twenty nine years. They know each other inside out. They’ve survived so much.

Then COVID plunges the country into lockdown, forcing them to isolate together. After all, the home is a place of safety… isn’t it?

As the world falls apart outside, Anne and Don’s marriage slowly falls apart inside. But soon there will be a solution. Won’t there?

Inspired by true events, Jab is a coruscating new black comedy, exploring power, gender, domestic violence, conspiracy theories, ignorance, and the limits of love.

In May 1979, Progressive Conservative Joe Clark was elected as Canada’s youngest ever Prime Minister.

By Christmas 1979, it looked as though it was all over.

But Clark is young and idealistic, resolute on making his mark in office, and governing for the whole country, not just his own party supporters. Faced with a critical decision, his colleagues – including his predecessor Pierre Trudeau – take the opportunity to steer him in completely different directions…

As the UK heads into what will almost certainly be another General Election year, this fast-paced satirical political comedy is a dazzling insight into the rapidly changing world of Conservative party politics.

Finborough Theatre

1 - 26 Oct, 2024

Beryl Cook: A Private View

6 - 28 Sep, 2024

The Silver Cord

Finborough Theatre