Colchester Fringe returns to take over Colchester city venues with live theatre, cabaret, drag and comedy.
The 10-day festival runs from Friday 24 October to Sunday 2 November with 70 shows across 7 venues, and we are VERY excited to explore this year’s shows!
The Festival Director Dr Cameron Abbott-Betts is a PhD Theatre Studies graduate and former staff member with the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies.
The Lakeside Theatre team, with the help of the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies preview all the Essex student, staff and alumni shows in this year’s programme!
Fish Outta Water
“There are some things a fish just can’t do, like ride a bicycle. No matter how hard it tries, it will never be able to get its slippery little fins on the pedals.”
While everyone else her age is out exploring uncharted waters, this 19-year-old is contained in captivity. Tired of swimming around in circles, she initiates ‘Operation: Free Willy – An Agoraphobic Orca’s Guide To Escaping Your Tank’. From driving lessons to dating, she dives head-first into adulthood, soon realising that being in the wild isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Fish Outta Water is a semi-autobiographical, solo, coming-of-age comedy, written and performed by emerging local playwright Jess Ashley (MA Theatre Practice and Lakeside Theatre Duty Manager), and directed by Colchester-based West End performer Joe Allen.
24 to 31 October
Mercury Theatre (studio)
Dead Doves and Lemons OR Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About Fan Fiction (but were too afraid to ask)
This is a hard time for you: your loved one just came out as a (gasp) fan fiction writer.
How do you respond to that? What will the neighbours think? What is Omega slick, anyway? Don't you worry because fan fic veteran MinaRoseTook (pseudonym) is here to answer all your questions. Join us on an eclectic (and often humorously cringey) journey while we explore how fan fiction came to be, why people like it, and how it's a valid form of art.
This fast-paced one-woman show is for people who love fan fiction, people who hate fan fiction, and people who have no idea what any of this means.
Who knows...maybe YOU'LL write something!
This fast-paced show from MA Scriptwriting student Deanna Strasse is for people who love fan fiction, people who hate fan fiction, and people who have no idea what any of this means.
25 October to 2 November
Three Wise Monkey (Top Floor)
A Two Woman Hamlet
“This is the Hamlet I have been waiting for my entire life” - Lakeside Theatre audience feedback
It's Hamlet, but not as you know it.
A TWO WOMAN HAMLET takes Shakespeare’s well-known tragedy and asks: what happens if you try to do this with a cast of two women in just 60 minutes? This is an unpretentious adaptation, with joys in it for those familiar with Hamlet and those new to the story.
Mara Sherman, who directed the original production in 2018, describes her motivation as not just giving women an opportunity to play great roles such as Hamlet and Claudius, but giving these characters the opportunity to be played by women. Following the critical success of past productions at the Capitol Fringe (Washington, DC, 2018) and Edinburgh Fringe (2022), we developed a fresh take on this fun, fast-paced, and irreverent adaptation for a sold-out run at Colchester's Lakeside Theatre in March 2025. We're thrilled to be bringing the show back to Colchester after touring to Camden Fringe in August.
With a rotating cast of three actors who mix and match across the two tracks, it's truly a different show every night!
BA Drama graduate Lolly Tayler joins MA Scriptwriting student Deanna Strasse and Essex staff alumni Sharmilla Peake, directed by Dr Nora Williams.
24 to 29 October
Headgate Theatre (Main)
The Fool’s Flock’s Comedy About a Vampire
When plague hits the village of Bottomswort, Gunther is forced to flee. The last thing he expected was a Vampire named Vladd.
Be transported to the medieval village of Bottomswort where a vicious plague is racking its residents and a spate of mysterious disappearances have left the town on tenterhooks. Desperate to find salvation, the only hope for the village would have been Humbolt the Brave; too bad the pustules got to him too. So, the fate of the village lies in the hands of Gunther, a pig farmer who’s always happy to step up to the plate.
With the arrival of the castle-loving, ‘red-wine’-drinking, sunshine-hating Vladd of Vladestan, murmurs of a vampire haunting the land start to fill the air. Gunther, with simplicity as his shield and stupidity as his sword, quickly falls into harm's way.
In this love letter to sketch shows of the past, the Fool’s Flock (featuring BA Drama and Literature graduate, Peter Vetere) present a tale full of gothic wonder. Blending puppetry, slapstick and poor decisions, the team are all playing to their strengths in this interactive comedy.
28 October to 2 November
Three Wise Monkeys (Top Floor)
COLLIDESCOPE cabaret
Fancy something a little bit different? Come along to the first COLLIDESCOPE Cabaret at Colchester Fringe! Expect poetry, drag, song, dance, music and lots of joy and fun from local LGBTQ+, neurodiverse, disabled and global majority talents. Each of our amazing variety shows will be completely unique and feature five fantastic artists at each, so why not come to every show?
This event is brought to you by COLLIDESCOPE is an Essex based non-profit that promotes diversity, inclusion and creativity from LGBTQ+ and other minority communities.
Collidescope was founded by Tom Stock, MA Film and Literature graduate.
26 October to 2 November
Various venues
Love is a Bruise
Dougie is out and proud, a “gay veteran” of campaigns, marches and promiscuity. Nick is a veteran, a straight guy who yearns for the good old days of Razzle. And Ray? Ray just wants to go home and have a cuddle. They will tell you their stories, the humour, the truth. But a terrifying event brings these three men together in one room. Love is A Bruise examines banter, behaviour and brotherhood and the consequences of falling in love and forgetting who you are.
A brand-new play by the double Colchester Fringe award winning writer Paul T. Davies, (The Miner’s Crow, Living with Luke), in association with Colchester Fringe Award winning 3 Wishes Theatre, (4:48 Psychosis).
Written and directed by Essex alum, local theatre veteran and reviewer, Paul T. Davies.
24 to 29 October
Mercury Theatre (Studio)
GUMBO: Out With It
Internationally acclaimed Japanese theatre troupe and Colchester Fringe's two-time Spirit of the Fringe winners Theatre Group GUMBO (Are You Lovin' It?, Forest of Truth) present a collection of performances created in partnership with University of Essex's students.
During a two-week theatre workshop taking place before this year's Fringe, University of Essex students are challenged to devise a short theatre piece exploring a "truth" which they are scared to share. The students have been encouraged to incorporate Theatre Group GUMBO's clowning, movement, and absurdist style into their own artistic practice. The evening is guaranteed to be a mix of humour, heart, and hard truths.
24 to 25 October
Headgate Theatre (Rehearsal Room)
Beating (off) Superheroes
In a bunker 3000 miles underground, Captain Handler is bound, blindfolded, and at the mercy of his arch-enemy: The Gecko. Beaten (off) into submission and drained of his superfluids, Captain Handler is doomed to be forever bred by the Gecko. Then Chuck enters... whom Captain Handler forgot his boyfriend invited over to rescue him...
Beating (off) Superheroes is a raw, kink-saturated queer comedy (of sorts) that explodes the myths of open relationships. Beating (off) Superheroes is a non-linear, multimedia, kinky gay sex romp with a full score by Jake & the Nowhere and Tungsten Lungs. Somewhere between roleplay and reality, a relationship is getting rescued. Maybe.
From PhD Theatre Studies candidate, Noah Pantano.
26 October to 2 November
Three Wise Monkey (Top Floor)
That’s Not Poetry!
James Domestic’s That’s Not Poetry! is for clued-up poetry fans, but also for people that think they don’t like poetry!
As counter-cultural poet, Adrian Mitchell famously noted, “Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people", and Domestic is a firm believer in the power of poetry to connect with people from all backgrounds through humour and dissection of the minutiae of daily life.
That’s Not Poetry! traces a wonky timeline from his childhood in an ailing Essex seaside town, right up to the present day. Taking in school, awful jobs, poor mental health, pets, politics, alcohol, death, sex, social comment, and an oddball cast of characters that’ll horrify and delight! Domestic’s life has taken an odd trajectory. A working-class kid with no interest in school, he spent his first post-school years between unemployment and working in a chemical factory. His former teacher’s wouldn’t believe that he now holds a doctorate from University of Essex!
Intelligent, irreverent, and delivered with an easy charm, the poetry of James Domestic is for anyone that enjoys words and the absurdities that punctuate the mundanity of the everyday. Audience participation is likely! Sometimes heart-rending, sometimes absurd, That’s Not Poetry! is an outline of a life of wonder, false starts, depression, dreams, triumphs, self-sabotage, and laughter. The vivid images conjured will stick with you long after the show has ended.
James is a member of staff at the University of Essex in the Data Archive.
26 to 28 October
Coda
Shar Cooterie’s Tales to Worsen Your Day
Looking for an evening of uplifting entertainment? Then you’ve come to the wrong place. Welcome to Shar Cooterie's Tales to Worsen Your Day—a cabaret of questionable wisdom, unsettling stories, and original music by Adam Saiz Abo Henriksen that is, at the very least, memorable.
Expect eerie fables, tragicomic misfortunes, and songs that will linger in your mind like an ominous premonition (or possibly indigestion). Will there be ghosts? Probably. Will there be bad decisions? Almost certainly. Will you leave feeling better about your own life? That’s the goal
Dark, ridiculous, and ever so slightly shambolic—because if you’re going to be emotionally devastated, you might as well have a laugh about it.
Come along. What’s the worst that could happen? (No refunds.)
Shar Cooterie is a local drag performer and has been queen of the stage at the Lakeside Theatre, the SU Bar and Sub Zero.
25 October to 2 November
The Dragonfly Lounge
