WHAT'S ON at GOLDEN GOOSE THEATRE
Golden Goose Theatre at The Golden Goose pub,
146 Camberwell New Road
Camberwell
London
SE5 0RR
Nearest tube: Oval (Northern Line)
Nearest bus stop: Vassal Road (36, 185, 436, N136)
NEW SEASON Click 'book now' for direct link to box office
Athespian Theatre Company
Tuesday 24th - Saturday 28th February
Gruesome Playground Injuries snapshots the wounds that bind soulmates, drawing them together through brokenness and repair as the red thread of fate connects them across distance and time
Gruesome Playgrounds Injuries follows Doug and Kayleen, soulmates whose bond begins in childhood on a playground that doubles as a rehearsal for life. At eight, they meet in a space designed for play yet charged with unease: a place where rules are learned, boundaries tested, and vulnerability first revealed. From that moment, we follow them through snapshots at ages 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 33, and 38. Each reunion uncovers the marks life leaves: emotional and physical wounds, instability, coping mechanisms, and attempts to live by values that sometimes leave love behind. Though they travel different paths, they remain bound by a red thread: an invisible line of connection that endures distance, time, and separation. The playground recurs as both a mental and theatrical landscape, where past experiences echo into adulthood. The red thread functions as guide and constraint, raising the question: is their bond destiny, habit, or a conscious act of survival? Through fragmented encounters, Gruesome Playgrounds explores love as a practice tested across time, and examines the tensions between identity and mirroring, connection and escape, repetition and growth.
1st-3rd March 2026
“An artist that is silent is not a true artist.”
Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov is in trouble. His work is banned, and the Soviet censors are closing in until an unexpected phone call from Stalin turns his world upside down.
This is a darkly comic tale about power, obsession, and the price of being heard. Obsessed with recognition and freedom, Bulgakov drifts into an increasingly absurd fantasy world while his wife struggles to keep him anchored to reality.
New international theatre company Throughline presents the first UK staging of Love Letters to Stalin since 1998, in a brand new translation. In a world where politics often feels like theatre, this is a fast, absurd, and unsettling reminder of what happens when art and authority collide.
6th-7th March 2026
“The play emerges fresh and clear and alive. The uniformly excellent cast perfectly match truth with style. One of the best pieces of theatre I’ve seen in years”- Mark Ravenhill, playwright
“This production of An Ideal husband is a miracle. Endlessly truthful. Rigorously inventive. It's a production born out of ferocious curiosity. It resonates as deeply now as it ever did and in this startling staging the play lives with more vitality and urgency than I have seen in Wilde.” - Simon Stephens, British playwright
“A groundbreaking theatrical event that reveals Oscar Wilde’s compassionate, mischievous spirit through a contemporary lens. The international cast is uniformly excellent, portraying fully realised human beings liberated from the Victorian trappings that often obscure Wilde’s plays. The result is a production that feels utterly of the moment — as if the play had been written today.” - Dominic Cooke, Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre
Oscar Wilde’s sharpest comedy of love and politics comes to the Golden Goose in a contemporary reimagining by Ramin Gray, director of 15 world premieres at the Royal Court. His production of Suppliant Women at the Young Vic received 5 stars from the Guardian, Telegraph, and others.
Shake-Scene Shakespeare presents
Measure For Measure and Julius Caesar - Dirty Politics Double Bill
8th & 15th March 2026
Measure For Measure & Julius Caesar
A Double Bill of Shakespeare’s Dirtiest Politics!
…all from cues only!
Transferring down to London from Shakespeare North Playhouse.
★★★★ “A truly impressive feat of Shakespeare,,, spontaneous, unpredictable and unmissable!” - Jo Tillotson, North West End '24
★★★★★ "quite simply, a joy to behold" - North West End '25
★★★★★ "superb acting and verse speaking" - North West End '25
Deceit. Treachery. Manipulation.
Book your seat for Measure For Measure, Julius Caesar, or both!
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Politics, power and hypocrisy in Shakespeare's Vienna
The ruling Duke takes a break, handing over responsibility to others who bring in harsh new laws. Are those in power all that they seem to be and what happens when they themselves are tempted? The Duke remains in disguise to spy on the city’s citizens - the just, the criminal, and everyone inbetween.
Watch our Trailer: https://youtu.be/Ixw29fdYMVo
Click the book now button below to book for either the double run or the individual performance for Measure For Measure
JULIUS CAESAR
Betrayal, backstabbing, and big political drama in ancient Rome. An Emperor wishes to be king. Political complications and competition abound.
Everyone learns that trust is a dangerous thing when loyalty and friendship clash and collide on the Ides of March.
Watch our Trailer: https://youtu.be/pucM9y4Et8M
Click the book now button below to book for either the double run or the individual performance of Julius Caesar
Shake-Scene perform from cued parts, requiring actors to work only from their own lines. Nobody studies the whole play, and the full text is not rehearsed before performance…promising hilarious discoveries and unforgettable moments - it’s Shakespeare, but not quite as you know it!
- “Is this Shakespeare as it would have been done or is it Shakespeare as it should be done?” - LondonTheatre1
Written by Pepper Jensen
10th-14th & 17th-21st March
Now sobre 10 years, Macduff is a long standing detective with the NYPD, serving under Police Commissioner Duncan who's worked hard to stop New York's cocaine epidemic. But when the detectives stumble across a warehouse with one of the department's very own lieutenants dealing drugs, it sends Macduff down a dangerous road of investigation which leads him to question everyone's loyalty as murder and betrayal surround the police force he'd trusted.
22nd March 2026
Seeking to satisfy sound curiosities, with a surreal sonic Mesh & Web of creativity. there's an improvised rendition of personal jangly nervy narratives with trumpet, Keyboards & drums to support, A duo with spoken word,storytelling versus a moody Space bass. A flute & reed trio, bringing you oceanic depth with an Atonal philosophical texture & a trio of visceral soundscapes, with guitar drums, percussion & Saxophones.
April 16th-18th 2026
Girls are sculpted by foreign hands from the moment they are born, and in the case of this girl, the hands come with the face of a friend. A friend who is beautiful, radiant, powerful, the kind of presence everyone can't help but notice entering a room. She is everything the girl is not. She is a mother, a best friend, a teacher and an enemy with an angelic face. Meanwhile, Girl's body screams fighting to live, but she has been sentenced to a lifetime of silence. Together the three of them start a rather unorthodox game of russian roulette where none of them can win. It is all controlled by a higher power fighting to keep their gaze at the wrong thing.
Killjoy Theatre is proud to present a work-in-progress run of Russian Roulette, a deeply personal, abstract depiction of eating disorders and their relationship to systemic misogyny.
DRH Arts and Orsolya Nagy Presents
21st April - 9th May 2026
DRH Arts and Orsolya Nagy present CHARLIE and STRIPTEASE by Slawomir Mrozek. A double-bill of hilarious political theatre by the award-winning Polish playwright. These two satirical plays from the Soviet era (in English translation) are absurdly relevant in today’s political climate of Trump’s America, the rise of authoritarianism and the impact of mass surveillance.
This production of STRIPTEASE was premiered at Birmingham Theatre Festival in 2025:
“Funny and brilliantly performed… comic timing is perfect” BIRMINGHAM FEST
“Mystery, suspense and plenty of laughs… a macabre fantasy brought to life by peerless performances.” GARY HUDSON (FORMER CHIEF REPORTER BBC MIDLANDS)
CHARLIE - How would you know “Charlie” if you saw him? And why does an old man and his grandson want to shoot him? “You said yourself there must be some justice, that one can’t just shoot at anybody in the street.”
STRIPTEASE - Two strangers find themselves unexpectedly in a strange room, dictated to by a mysterious “hand” which requires them to divest items of clothing. “I try to do everything I am permitted to do, but apparently wearing trousers is not permitted.”
