Combining the weird and wonderful with the gritty and ground-breaking, the Pleasance’s  Spring/Summer Theatre Season 2023 will bring a vibrant and wide-ranging programme of shows,  with something for everyone. A glorious line-up of hilarious, heartfelt and hard-hitting shows fill  Pleasance’s Main House in the heart of North London: from Edinburgh Fringe legends to critically acclaimed political performance poets, audiences can look forward to a unique astrology bingo night  and an abundance of onions. In the intimate studio space Downstairs, grief and ancestral  inheritance are explored alongside queer coming-of-age dramas, surreal dark comedies, and topical  pieces tackling the corrosiveness of racial stereotypes and the climate crisis.  

Kicking off the Spring season in the Main House, Kissed by a Flame (1–11 February) by Simon Perrott is a window into the final months of that once-in-a-lifetime kind of love; the beautiful, tragic,  funny, and bittersweet moments that bind us together. In Downstairs, I Love You Now What? (25-29 April) from actor and comedian Sophie Craig opens a window into the story of Ava and  Theo, following the loss of Ava’s father that caused her world to come tumbling down. These Words That'll Linger Like Ghosts Till The Day I Drop Down Dead (13–24 June) is an experimental play from the multi-award-winning playwright Georgie Bailey, exploring the things we wish we’d said to  those who have now left us, how we manage grief and how, ultimately, we can never go back to the  past. 

Edinburgh hits are also coming to London. From Rinkoo Barpaga and Deaf Explorer, Made in India Britain (19–20 April) follows Roo, a deaf Punjabi boy from Birmingham living in a world that  wasn't made for him. This mesmerising performance is delivered in BSL, with spoken word English  translation and Closed captions available via the Difference Engine. Fresh from an award-winning  run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Jesus, Jane, Mother & Me (26th – 29th April) is a twisted  coming-of-age story blending black humour and heartache by acclaimed playwright Philip Stokes  (Heroin(e) for Breakfast), exploring family dynamics, who our idols are and how hard life can be  when you’re a little bit different.  

Also fresh from the Fringe, My First 75 Years in Comedy (16th – 18th March) is Arthur Smith’s love letter to the playground of the imagination that is the Edinburgh Fringe on its 75th birthday. It tells  the story of the great city and its festivals and recalling some of the triumphs, disasters, love affairs  and arrests of his many Augusts in Auld Reekie. Hamlet, Colditz, Leonard Cohen, Dante, dementia, Gary Lineker and the Leith Police all feature in this moving hour of revelations, songs, poems, and  gags. The award-winning The Remains of Logan Dankworth (8–10 March) is the third in Fringe First winner Luke Wright’s trilogy of political verse plays that look at trust, fatherhood, and family in  the age of Brexit, following columnist and Twitter warrior Logan Dankworth as the EU Referendum  looms. 

Both the Main House and Pleasance Downstairs will see coming-of-age stories of love and  relationships: the debut play from TV writer Kat Rose-Martin (Holby City, BBC; Wolfe, Sky), Pick n  Mix (24 January–4 February) is a tale of sisterhood, Sex Ed and sanitary pads. In Wild, actually (15–20 May) Ell is peaking – she’s on the cusp of playing for Arsenal Ladies Under18s, her  boyfriend’s a model and school is going well – but Ell is also obsessed with films, so much so that she  begins to lose touch with her own reality. I think I might cheat on my girlfriend (11–13 May)  follows Jermaine – undervalued and underappreciated, he is unhappy in his current relationship, but  things start looking up when a new girl starts at work.  

Pleasance favourite Mahatma Khandi (Sink The Pink's How To Catch A Krampus; DOG SHOW) is  taking up residency in the Pleasance with The Khandi Shop, spread across three very special Friday  shows (24 February, 2 June, 24 November). Sweet as the curry sauce you get at McDonald’s,  this cabaret Pick and Mix is a playground of creation and collaboration showcasing the excellent  talents of disenfranchised performers. Your favourite galactic gal pals and former Pleasance  Associate Artists Figs in Wigs (Little Wimmin) return to the Pleasance for three nights only with the  universe's first ever cosmic game show for astrology lovers, bingo wingers and their sceptic friends: Astrology Bingo (17–19 May). Instead of numbers, audiences count their lucky stars: each  player will receive a unique tailor-made bingo card generated from their personal horoscope. 

Decommissioned (10-15 April) is based on the true story of Fairbourne in Wales, a coastal village that Gweynedd council planned to ‘decommission’ and abandon to the sea. This funny confronting play looks at how we’re meant to care for children, fall in love and stay sane while  tackling the climate catastrophe. I Hate it Here (28 February–11 March) is an interactive devised piece about zero hours contracts and instability; audiences can expect to participate in game shows,  sign up for shifts and have the power to change the outcome of the show. Audio live theatre  performance comes to the Pleasance with Insides (3–8 April) about two workers who seek  refuge in an emergency bunker after a mine explosion – inviting audiences to watch (and listen) as  they unravel, bond, despair, and wait to be saved, exploring how we keep secrets, and what  happens when there’s nowhere to hide. 

The Devil Wears Prada meets Spy Kids in Fashion Spies (6–11 March), a fabulous and surreal  choose-your-own-adventure comedy from Quick Duck Theatre where the audience takes centre  stage to thwart the biggest threat that fashion has ever seen. The audience decides the outcome of  the show in One Way Mirror (24–29 April), an interactive piece about the art of people watching. Back from his filthy adventures in Clown Sex, Gary Strange delights in overhearing the  secrets of his high-rise neighbours through plugholes, drainpipes and washing machine fittings in  Love Rash (14–18 February).  

Written with the Soho Writers’ Lab and the winner of the 2020 Carlo Annoni International Playwriting Award, Get Happy (27 February–4 March) is the debut show from Joseph Aldous about sentient Alexas, temping, queer happiness, and Ke$ha. Using touching interviews, innovative  projection and powerful storytelling, 30 & Out (30 May–3 June) takes audiences on a  memorable journey about drawing your own blueprint, discovering identity and losing yourself  along the way.  

Certain Dark Things bring their striking combination of puppetry, live music and movement in this  pulse-quickening gothic thriller, Savage Heart (13–18 March), exploring the horror of  entrapment and the resilience of women. Written by Ella Dorman-Gajic, TRADE (20–25 March)  is an unflinching, captivating new three-hander exploring morality and power within the European  sex-trafficking industry, with artistically integrated captions making the piece accessible for d/Deaf  audiences and native Serbo-Croat speakers. 

From Mandala Theatre Company, MAD(E) (14–18 March) is an epic story of life, death, and  everything in between. Sean Burn’s passionate, exhilarating and uniquely theatrical commentary on  masculinity and young men’s mental health was co-created with boys and young men from across  the country. Playfight (29 May–3 June), from Orísun Productions – a theatre company  dedicated to African and African Caribbean creatives is an unflinching look at the adultification of an  entire generation of young Black males. Directed by Leian John-Baptiste (Small Island, National  Theatre) this important production examines the corrosive way in which racism determines the  direction young Black lives take.  

Summer Camp For Broken People (9–20 May) is a bold and brave semiautobiographical dark comedy, based on diary entries, letters and essays written during time in a psychiatric hospital  following a violent sexual assault. A show performed entirely in Spanish with English subtitles, The  “S” is Silent (11–15 April) looks at the uncomfortable past of Franco’s 40-year-long fascist  regime through the eyes and voices of women, those who have been historically left out of the  narrative.  

Audiences with dark senses of humour can look forward to Stacey Evans’ debut solo show Hanging  Around (4–8 April), a brand-new horror comedy about identity, truth, and the peculiar  challenges of living; Slow Violence (21–25 March), an absurd comedy from B Team Theatre  about attitudes to climate change; and Cosmic Collective’s Heaven’s Gate (13–18 February),  which imagines the final hour of the real life 1997 doomsday cult as they prepare for their  ‘Graduation’ to the Kingdom of Heaven. 

A very stupid clown show, Broigus (8–13 May) is about hereditary anger, feuding solo, the threat  of resolutions and the shit David pulled at Grandma's shiva in 1993. Broigus (Yiddish, meaning ‘a  feud, an unresolved grievance or a bitter dispute’) is from Associate Artist Lauren Silver, all about  the time-honoured Jewish tradition of arguing. Blueprints (12– 17 June) asks if we are destined  to repeat ancestral patterns forever. If you could know the entire history of your bloodline, and  everything you’re passing on to your children, would you want to know? This new show by Ashlee  Elizabeth-Lolo is about beginnings, knowledge, and ancestral inheritance. 

Blending theatre, dance, circus, and over 100 delightfully destroyed onions, WILD ONION (15–17 February) brings three queer best friends together to explore and grow their chosen family. The  Carol Tambor and LET Award-winning physical theatre company Voloz Collective brings an exciting  new show, The Life Sporadic of Jess Wildgoose (19–24 June). This cinematic comic thriller  follows a social media content moderator, who’s life starts to fall apart, and she begins to find it  impossible to distinguish her past from her future.  

The Pleasance’s Artistic Director Anthony Alderson said: “Our spring season really highlights  the amazing artists that the Pleasance work with – this incredible breadth of work brings some of our award-winning Edinburgh Fringe shows alongside exciting new programming in both theatre and  comedy with pieces that span queer themes, family, relationships and mental health. We are proud  to be presenting such bold artists at our London home.”

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