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THE HOLLY HELLMAN HOUR

7 January

Leopards and squirrels and trains, oh my! An hour of original and extremely unserious new sketch comedy from Holly Hellman and a group of people here of their own free will.

Interested in an hour of nuanced philosophical discussion on the following topics:
– Philosophy
– Culture
– War?

Then for god’s sake look elsewhere. We recommend Bake Off.

If, however, you’re looking for sketches occupying the upper right quadrant of a graph where the x axis is labelled ‘funny’, the y ‘dramatically incoherent’, and jokes as long-winded as that previous one there, then come along down to the Holly Hellman Hour.

From the mind of a 2025 Royal Court shortlisted Young Playwright, and the bodies of actors willing to do this for free, comes an hour of new sketch comedy. With subjects ranging from squirrels to trains to more trains (we got
a bit carried away with the trains) there’s something for everyone, as long as you like at least one of those things. Otherwise, again, Bake Off seems a safe bet.

WHITE ELEPHANTS

23 & 24 January

A small town station bears witness to a series of life changing interactions over 80 years.

1927: A young couple must contend with a decision that threatens the life that they know.

1967:  Two strangers meet and strike up an unlikely friendship over a game of cards.

2007:  A conversation between two locals demonstrates the risks of miscommunication.

Using Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ as a starting point, White Elephants’ is a new work both comic and melancholic. Musing on life in transit, fleeting interactions, and our capacity for love without duty, it explores how communication shapes our lives and impacts our choices.

Featuring an outstanding cast of performers, White Elephants combines drama and original live music to convey the tensions of small town life from the same station platform.

Looking for Wolverhampton’s Latin Quarter

26 January

A funny, touching and self-deprecating account of growing up in 1970s Wolverhampton.

Winner of the New York Radio Festivals Award 2025 for his collaboration
with Andrew McGibbon on their acclaimed Radio 4 play When Alan met
Ray, starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, Ian returns to Canal
Cafe with his sell out Edinburgh Fringe comedy play about growing up in
Wolverhampton in the 1970s.

He looks back at his deluded teenage years. Being a trainee butcher at
the Co-op is only a temporary situation before he reveals his true artistic
talents to the world. No careers officer or personnel manager is going to
stop him producing his rock album, publishing his poetry or mounting
his first exhibition. A world of awkward romantic relationships, Sex Pistols, Crossroads and Angel Delight.

BEAT

27 January

A genre-bending verbatim song cycle that explores what it means to be alive.

What if you didn’t need a beating heart to be alive? This is the question composer-saxophonist Lydia Kenny and librettist-singer Olivia Bell pose in BEAT, a bold new verbatim song cycle for saxophone, bass clarinet, harp,
vibraphone, voice and electronics. Blending electro-acoustic sound with a libretto stitched from first-hand interviews and a vast array of documentary sources, from medieval potions to last rites, BEAT probes the edges of life, death and the strange pulse that binds us together.

The work draws on an eclectic archive: from newspaper cuttings to NHS leaflets on leeches, Instagram callouts, overheard conversations on late-night trains and TED talks on frozen frogs. Kenny and Bell also weave in moving testimony from those who work in end of life care and sacred texts from across multiple faith traditions, exploring how different cultures mark the transition between presence and absence, body and spirit, heartbeat and silence.

Humorous, unsettling, funky and deeply human, BEAT revels in the slippery territory between the medical and the mystical, the scientific and the surreal. Through its collage of voices – living, remembered, archived and overheard – it unpicks our assumptions about what it means to be alive and how we reach for one another when the end comes close. This is documentary music-theatre with a pulse all of its own.

GELIN

31 January

When her overbearing mother arranges a marriage she doesn’t want, Aylin sends her best friend in her place – only for it to backfire when her future husband falls for the imposter.

Gelin is a modern adaptation of Ibrahim Şinasi’s Şair Evlenmesi, reimagined from the female characters’ perspective in present-day London.

Aylin, a young Turkish woman with a habit of telling tall tales, is blindsided when her overbearing mother, Sevim, arranges a marriage she doesn’t want. Instead of saying no, Aylin decides to send her bumbling British friend, Yaz, to meet Emre, the “perfect” groom, in her place, secretly convinced Yaz’s kookiness will scare him off. Only…Yaz and Emre actually click. But he still thinks she’s Aylin. As the lies pile up all the way to the wedding, Aylin is forced to confront why she tells so many stories to keep the peace – with her mother, her best friend and herself.

Inspired by the unheard voices in Şair Evlenmesi, Gelin explores the complexities women face across cultures, from family expectations to the fragile but powerful bonds of female friendships. Funny, charming and honest, Gelin asks whether a woman can be the ‘mükemmel gelin’ – the perfect bride – without lying about herself to make everyone happy.