Including their Christmas offering – a comedy reimagining of Dracula written by Mock the Week creator Dan Patterson and Artistic Director Jez Bond – Park Theatre has announced four new shows. From beatbox to Beat poetry, The North London venue will also present the bizarre world of Lost Watches, showcase scratch work from three bold writers and directors, and host a one-night-only with Julian Clary, presented as a special fundraiser.
The first of the newly announced productions is NO SHOW (16 – 19 June), original material each presented as a 20 – 30 minute excerpt, offering audiences a chance to experience three distinctive works in their early stages. Guy Hodgkinson brings a sharp, cinematic edge to the stage with a fresh adaptation of This Closeness, the acclaimed film by Kit Zauhar, exploring intimacy, disconnection, and the strange performance of everyday life. Steven Kavuma’s In These Four Walls (working title) was created in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, and the subsequent global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. And Charlotte Hamblin’s Daffodils centres on a woman who drops everything when she finds out her ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago is getting married. She follows him about the week of his wedding.
Lost Watches’ (30 July – 23 Aug) is a bizarre world of Beat poetry and broken dreams. Following his mother’s death, Allen is left with a house he can’t pay off and emotional trauma he can’t process. He hordes, he works dead-end jobs, he watches TV with a grumpy old man… all from the comfort of his mother’s dusty work shed. He doesn’t see a way out and doesn’t want to change. However, on the weekend leading up to the repossession of his family home, he receives some unexpected visits that lead him down a delirious path of discovery.
The latest in their series of celebrity guest fundraisers, following evenings with Jonathan Pryce and Maureen Lipman, Park Theatre are delighted to host An Audience With Julian Clary (14 Sept). In conversation with Park Theatre’s Artistic Director Jez Bond, the comedy legend will look back through 40 years in show business. After exploding onto the 1980s alternative comedy scene with his trailblazing brand of ultra-glam, high camp and outrageously bawdy routines, Julian swiftly became prime time TV gold, and has been delighting and titillating the nation ever since. In this frank and intimate conversation – followed by questions from the audience – Julian will reveal the highs and lows of a unique career, from West End stardom, winning Celebrity Big Brother, becoming a bestselling author and competing on Strictly Come Dancing to his legendary London Palladium pantomime appearances.
Finally Christmas show Dracapella (3 Dec – 17 Jan) is a new musical comedy take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and will feature a score of close-harmony acapella renditions of favourite jukebox hits with mind blowing beat box accompaniment. The show reunites artistic director Jez Bond with Mock the Week creator Dan Patterson after their collaboration on Winners Curse. Dracapella promises to be a riotous, alternative festive night out.
Park Theatre presents exceptional theatre in the heart of Finsbury Park, boasting two world-class performance spaces: Park200 for predominantly larger scale productions by established talent, and Park90, a flexible studio space, for emerging artists. In twelve years, it has enjoyed 10 West End transfers (including Rose starring Maureen Lipman, The Boys in the Band starring Mark Gatiss, Pressure starring David Haig and The Life I Lead starring Miles Jupp), two National Theatre transfers, 14 national tours, seven Olivier Award nominations, has won multiple OffWestEnd Offie Awards, and a Theatre of the Year award from The Stage as well as their inaugural Campaign of the Year award in 2025 for their work reaching underserved audiences with Canadian/ Korean comedy drama Kim’s Convenience.
