Lambeth Fringe Festival will return this September and October celebrating 10 years of the festival with a programme of over 200 events. The 2025 programme featuring theatre, comedy, cabaret, music and family events showcases the vibrant culture and community of Lambeth with a focus on platforming underrepresented voices in the arts. The programme features highlights including The Ultimate Bubble Show (3 – 4 Oct) a bubble show for children and adults, Willy Witches (8 – 10 Oct) a comedic tale of four women’s strife to survive the English witch hunts, MJ Hibbet: Data and Dr Doom (11 Oct) a one-man musical about why data shows Doctor Doom is better than Batman and CatGPT – Feline & Ferall (26 – 27 Sept) the true story of how one man brought his cat back to life with AI.
For the first time, Lambeth Fringe is supported by Arts Council England, allowing the festival to expand its programme to their biggest festival yet and partner with new venues including Arch 555 at Silly Towers (Bureau of Silly Ideas), Vauxhall City Farm and Vaulty Towers. New partner venue Morley College will be donating all ticket proceeds to The Lambeth Fringe Bursary which helps fund access to higher education at Morley College for students who might otherwise be excluded.
Programme highlights include:
Week 1, 25 – 28 Sept: CatGPT – Feline & Ferall (26 – 27 Sept) the ridiculous but true story of how one man dealt with the death of his beloved cat by bringing it back to life with tech, ingenuity and AI. In drag burlesque satire BINCELS (26 Sept) three incels hatch rotten plots to defeat the imminent threat of a “femoid” takeover delving into online subculture of InCels. In Bog Body: A One-Woman Show (25 Sept & 20 Oct) forensic anthropologist Dr. Alyssa Kim takes the audiences through a thrilling lecture about the discovery of a cursed 2000-year-old body found in a bog as she faces off against an ancient monster and her own deepest fears. The children of Lambeth are invited Myths, Maps & Monsters: Zeus’ Birthday Bash! (27 – 28 Sept), but what promises to be a great celebration is tragically cut short when the evil Medusa steals all the birthday treats. The audience must navigate a chaotic world of mischievous Gods, wise Goddesses, and fearsome monsters, to retrieve the treasure, defeat Medusa, and restore order to Ancient Greece.
Week 2, 29 Sept – 5 Oct: A children’s poetry show for all the senses, A Noise Annoys (4 Oct) features rhymes, noises, songs, surprises and lots of interaction on a journey through the sounds of language and the language of sounds. The Ultimate Bubble Show (3 – 4 Oct) Ray Bubbles, International Bubbleologist and Guinness World Record Holder crafts bubble sculptures, volcanoes, bubble ghosts and a tornado inside a bubble in a show for children and adults. A comedy exploring the hidden propaganda in outdated children’s entertainment, Elephant in the Room (29 – 30 Sept) follows 94-year-old Babar, king of the elephants and one of the most adored childhood cartoons around the world, as he investigates if Babar is really the colonialist elephant in the room we’ve all been ignoring.
Week 3, 6 – 12 Oct: Willy Witches (8 – 10 Oct) four women navigate life in 17th Century England as women trying not to be burnt at the stake, crossing paths with an indifferent priest, a sassy teenage witch, a terrifying witch hunter and the men who are mourning the loss of their members. In outdoor experimental show Lost The Plot (8 Oct) a trio at the beginning of nowhere awaken to find nothing but a baby mobile above them and with no explanation for why they exist. MJ Hibbet: Data and Dr Doom (11 Oct) is a one-man musical performed by MJ Hibbet, the world’s leading (also only) academic expert on Doctor Doom, explaining how all fictional characters can be understood with stats and randomised stratified sampling and why Doctor Doom is better than Batman.
Week 4, 13 – 19 Oct: head bucket bed (13 Oct) is a dance theatre performance building surrealist dreamscapes to explore the relationship between bodies and objects by playfully interacting, merging and transforming the material environment. In An Evening With Nana Funk (17 Oct), the great-great-grandmother of good times, Nana Funk, believes ageing well doesn’t mean behaving yourself in this One Nana cabaret show. This Wasn’t the Plan (15 Oct) sees comedians Iman Ahmedani and Stuti Johri navigate identity, illness, love, and the messy art of self-acceptance in a show painting a tapestry of their experiences as women of colour in their early 30s. Mother Knows Best (18 – 19 Oct) is a play exploring how oppression is cyclical and how domesticity hides the horrors of the world outside your front door, through three daughters and mothers arguments taking place in three Jewish homes: one in 1900s Russia, one in 1960s South Africa, and one in 2020s Israel.
Week 5, 20 – 25 Oct: Thou Shalt Sit The F*** Down (20 – 21 Oct) Ben Everett Riley tells the true stories of the awkward, the outrageous and the outright unbelievable world of kid’s entertainment that you never knew existed in our very city. Joan: The Musical (20 Oct) is a triumphant tale about a woman’s dwindling confidence and her journey of self-discovery following Joan, an ex-West End dancer scorned by her ex-husband’s wayward ways. #Hysteria: A History of Human Sexuality (20 – 21 Oct) is a satirical, educational comedy show exploring the historical views and problems surrounding sexuality and the health system. In Jane Eyre Convention (24 Oct) aficionados gather at the Jane Eyre convention to squabble over lines, scenes and interpretations as they piece together their reenactment of the book, but beneath the arguing and scene-stealing, real-life stories emerge and emotions run amok.
Festival directors Velenzia Spearpoint and Rebecca Pryle said, “As we celebrate ten years of The Lambeth Fringe (formerly The Clapham Fringe) we’re thrilled to present our biggest and most ambitious programme to date. This year marks a major milestone, with support from Arts Council England, an expanded roster of venues across Lambeth, and the continued backing of our incredible partners and community. We’re especially proud to deepen our commitment to artist wellbeing through our partnership with Wellbeing in the Arts, and to introduce initiatives like the Lambeth Fringe Bursary and The Glitch Awards. The spirit of the Fringe has always been about creativity, accessibility and grassroots energy and in 2025, that spirit is stronger than ever.”
Lambeth Fringe is produced by the team behind Bread and Roses Theatre, a 50-seat fringe venue above The Bread & Roses Pub. The theatre programs a wide-spread variety of productions for local as well as far-reaching audiences. Equality, diversity and artistic quality are at the forefront of the theatre’s programming, which features in-house productions as well as many visiting companies.
