NOTE: Wheelchair access is available at this venue, please enquire when booking tickets.

Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope 

written and performed by Mark Farrelly

directed by Linda Marlowe

14 - 17 January

“Ask yourself this. If there were no praise or blame – who would I be?”

Mark Farrelly’s hugely acclaimed solo play returns to the Jack Studio!

From a conventional upbringing to global notoriety via The Naked Civil Servant, Quentin Crisp was one of the most memorable figures of the twentieth century.

Naked Hope depicts the legendary Quentin Crisp at two phases of his extraordinary life. Firstly in the late 1960s in his filthy Chelsea flat (“Don’t lose your nerve: after the first four years the dust won’t get any worse”). Here Quentin surveys a lifetime of degradation and rejection. Repeatedly beaten for being flamboyantly gay as early as the 1930s, ostracised simply for daring to live life on his own terms.

The play then transitions the audience to New York in the 1990s. Here a much older Quentin, finally embraced by society, regales the audience with his sharply-observed, hard-earned philosophy on how to have a lifestyle: “Life will be more difficult if you try to become yourself. But avoiding this difficulty renders life meaningless. So discover who you are. And be it. Like mad!”.

Naked Hope is a glorious, uplifting celebration of the urgent necessity to be yourself.

Press for this production:

“An uncanny feat of resurrection. Farrelly’s mastery of his audience is total” ★★★★ Time Out

“A sensational performance”★★★★ Theatrescene.net

“Wonderful. Mark Farrelly channels Quentin Crisp brilliantly. It’s important to keep his voice alive!” Boy George

“A great show and a terrific performance.” Peter Tatchell

“Captivating and wonderfully compelling!” Sir Matthew Bourne

North West End ★★★★★
Sardines Magazine ★★★★★
All That Dazzles ★★★★★
Theatre and Art Reviews ★★★★★

Masterclass

by Tim Connery

directed by Luke Adamson

presented by The Bridge House Theatre

20 - 24 January

It’s evening in the classroom of a small primary school and it’s time for a Masterclass… but who is teaching who?

Thanks to a minor disagreement with the tax man, ageing Shakespearean thespian and faded film star Roger Sutherland is forced to swallow his pride and start offering paid evening acting masterclasses in local primary schools and community halls. It’s a far cry from the West End, but the show must go on.

Enter stage left Gary Brock – a brash, young Australian actor with a TV past and big ambitions. Once a child star Down Under, Gary has crossed the globe to reignite his career in the land of Shakespeare, but instead finds himself face to face with Roger, whose disdain for modern acting methods is matched only by his contempt for actors who don’t know their soliloquies from their stage directions.

With clashing egos, wildly different philosophies on acting, and a few forgotten lines along the way, sparks fly and tempers flare. But beneath the posturing and put-downs, could these two actors actually have something to learn from one another?

A sharp, funny, and heartfelt exploration of art, ambition, and the fine line between performance and reality.

Masterclass is a new comedy-drama from the team behind Bridge House Theatre hits THE MAN IN THE SHED, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING FRANK, LUCKY DOG, CHET BAKER – LET’S GET LOST, THE EAGLE & THE SEAGULL, WHAT A GAY DAY – THE LARRY GRAYSON STORY and PENGE WEST.

Call Yourself An Irishman?

written and performed by Declan Duffy

29 Dec - 31Jan



You’re born in one country. But your parents come from a different one. So what does that make you?

And what if the two countries in question share a profound and complex history, one of conquest and subjugation, of resistance and rebellion? But which happen to be closest neighbours across the Irish Sea, and have grown to a mutual understanding, and (a sometimes uneasy) co-existence?

Where do you find your identity? How do you define yourself? Are you British? Or are you Irish? Or don’t you know?

Join Declan Duffy as he attempts to make some good sense out of it all. He’ll consider the history of Irish migration to Britain, the difficulties encountered by the people who made that journey, and how all of it has influenced us, their descendants, in our consideration of who we are, what we are.

Press for this production

“Hilarious, informative and thought-provoking. Totally relatable to second- and third-generation Irish.” The Irish World

“This powerful, funny and moving show dives into migration, identity and the complex ties between Britain and Ireland.” Irish Cultural Centre, Hammersmith

Five Pianos

written and performed by Niall Ashdown

5 - 7 February

When Niall was nine years old he took his first, and as it turned out, last piano exam. And vowed never to play the piano again.

Since that day, there’s always been a piano somewhere that has drawn him back. This production explores, celebrates and commemorates this enduring love affair, and its place at the heart of all the clarity and confusion that life has thrown at him – and that life throws at all of us.

Featuring original songs, Five Pianos is a funny, intimate and honest story of piano as lover, as liability, as lifesaver.

Niall Ashdown is an actor, comic improviser and writer. He is a regular performer with The Comedy Store Players, an associate artist with Improbable Theatre, and has appeared on telly in Whose Line Is It Anyway? Outnumbered and, most notably (if you’re of a certain age) Jackanory. He teaches improvisation and theatre too. This is his first solo project since The Man Who Would Be Sting, and the highly-acclaimed Hungarian Bird Festival, both of which became radio plays for BBC Radio 4.

What I’d Be

by Tanieth Kerr

directed by Katy Livsey

presented by Headache Creative Productions

17 - 21 February

“I think the greatest gift my mum ever gave me was my sister.”

Two estranged sisters reunite on a park bench after their mother’s funeral. Makayla hasn’t been home since she left ten years ago; Ally hasn’t left since she dropped out of university.

Together they confront the ghosts and misunderstandings of their difficult but shared history. Honest, funny and raw, Headache Creative’s new play is a story about the strong but complicated bond of sisterhood.

What I’d Be is for the ones who escaped and for the ones who stayed.

‘It is clear that Headache Creative Productions is destined for many ambitious future ventures.’ West End Best Friend

Headache Creative Productions is a collection of artists who are passionate about creating more sustainable, female led, LGBTQIA+ theatre. They are the team behind the 2025 tour of LIV: Sapphic Shakespeare and are very excited to debut What I’d Be at the Jack!

The Village Where No One Suffers 

by Polina Polozhentseva

directed by Valery Reva

24 - 28 February

 

Like if I went to sleep in my own bed and woke up in the same bed – but in the middle of the ocean…

Have you ever been in love? Well, Lukyana might be. Sometimes.

Rather than face up to her husband-to-be she decides to run away to the one place that would give her peace, her recently deceased Grandmother’s house in war torn Ukraine.

Conflicted between what is happening in her native land and her own feelings, Lukyana finds herself sleeping with her ex and listening to the next-door neighbour divulge secrets about her grandmother’s extraordinary life.

Coming under fire from all sides, this play features witchcraft, closure and…well, missiles.

To mark the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion, this play comes at a timely and utterly necessary point in our global history.

Polina Polozhentseva is a Ukrainian playwright who has been based in London for the past three years. She’s the mind behind wonderful works such as Don’t Freak Out — part of Chew, Swallow at Kyiv’s Wild Theatre (2021); Grandma and Grandpa Are Having Sex — Theatre of Playwrights, Kyiv (2023); Save The Light and A Fan of War — Barons Court Theatre, London (2022 and 2024). A laureate of multiple playwriting competitions, Polina’s plays have been translated into English, German, and Polish, and staged worldwide — from Hong Kong to New York.