The Lambeth Fringe announces expansion with nearly 150 shows

The Lambeth Fringe 2024 marks the evolution of the acclaimed Clapham Fringe, now in its 9th year, and has expanded across the borough to include 23 venues including founding venue Bread and Roses Theatre. With a programme of nearly 150 shows over five weeks, including theatre, comedy, works in progress, cabaret, experimental performances, music, family shows and more, it will showcase the rich tapestry of Lambeth’s culture and history with a particular focus on amplifying underrepresented voices and nurturing boundary-pushing new work. Also featured in the lineup is West Norwood’s first comedy festival, ChooSE27 Comedy Festival, with a huge array of shows from rubber duck-wielding cabaret to stars of Taskmaster. By reducing financial barriers and offering performance opportunities at various venues across South London, The Lambeth Fringe festival empowers artists to share their stories and talents with the community.

The Lambeth Fringe has launched its Golden Ticket competition and will be giving away 50 tickets; to win, all audiences need to do is follow Lambeth Fringe Festival on Instagram, share their Golden Ticket post and comment on it. Five winners will be announced.

Highlights of the festival include:

Week 1,19 – 22 Sep: Kicking off the festival, Bread and Roses will be hosting a double bill of short plays in The Platform and friendship story Trashed (19 Sept, 7pm and 9pm), a female religious leader causes controversy in 13th century Italy in The Popess: Instructions for Freedom at the Glitch (21 Sept & 8 Oct), musical cabaret A Catalogue of Sexual Anxieties opens at White Bear Theatre (19 – 28 Sept), Against the Clock at Cinema Museum (20 Sept) celebrates monochrome comedians Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and at Streatham Space Project Does anyone else smell curry? (19 Sept) sees a British Asian tries to make sense of her identity through lip sync, spoken word and dance.

Week 2, 23 – 29 Sept: Going into week two, a Scouser and a Kentish Maid wake up in Slough accidentally married in Vegas at Bread and Roses (23 & 24 Sept) a character is locked in a room with a talking dead body in The Corpse in the Room at the Calder Bookshop & Theatre (25 – 27 Sept), a couple decide to break up during a bank robbery in Love, Bonnie & Clyde at Golden Goose Theatre (24 & 25 Sept), best of Brighton Fringe Comedy Award nominees Darren Cullen and Ewan May split an hour in Fat Goose Goes Halves at Douglas Fir (23 – 24 Sept), and the comedy continues at Mondo Taproom in Lottie Field and Christopher Ryan: Double Up (27 Sept) in a show about the intersection between science and sexism.

Week 3, 30 Sept – 6 Oct: Cassette ’93 at Bread and Roses (1 – 3 Oct) is about real women in Columbia, an untrustworthy guru gains an audience on thousands in Guru Dave’s Cosmic Shamanic Tantric Ego Trip at The Glitch (5 Oct), Golden Goose Theatre hosts Defective Inspector: An American Odyssey & A Stitch in Time (30 Sept), and over at Omnibus Theatre AURIC (Songs from a Golden Age) provides musical performance inspired by classical poetry.

Week 4, 7 - 13 Oct: This week, ChooSE27 Comedy Festival will be presenting comedy from Taskmaster stars to a podcast recording in the cemetery, all concluding with a charity gala show at the iconic St. Luke's Church. Sluts with Consoles at Bread and Roses (9 – 11 Oct) looks at women in gaming, a Korean woman is captured by the Japanese Army in WWII in The Comfort Woman at Bread and Roses (12 & 13 Oct), part interactive theatre, part seminar Identity Theft: What to Expect When You’re Unsuspecting is at the Glitch (12 & 13 Oct), and in Bowling Alone at Mondo Taproom (11 Oct) Ben O’Sullivan bowls for the good of the sport and comedy itself.

Week 5, 14 – 20 Oct: Closing the festival, Every Everyday Improv at Effra Social (16 Oct) makes fun of the totally ordinary, every phone becomes a lie detector in A Lie and Two Truths at Bread and Roses (15 Oct), the dreads and laughs of being an Emerging Migrant Female Artist is explored in Is This an Artist Life? at Gipsy Hill Brewery Taproom (20 Oct), The Moat at Network Theatre (16 – 19 Oct) is an absurd play about an absurd world, and in Hello, Box Office at Central Film School (18 Oct) theatremakers fight for funding from Andrew Lloyd Webber in a dystopian future.

Festival directors Velenzia Spearpoint and Rebecca Pryle said, “With 2024 being the ten-year anniversary of The Bread & Roses Theatre, and the 9th year we have run this festival, it feels like the perfect time to spread our wings even wider, and bring the whole borough of Lambeth together for what we hope will be the fastest-growing and most vibrant Off West End arts festival in the city. With favourable deals for artists, and a wide range of venues to choose from, we can’t wait to welcome audiences to the very first Lambeth Fringe!”

The venues include: Bread and Roses Theatre, Calder Bookshop & Theatre, Central Film School, The Cinema Museum, The Douglas Fir, Effra Social, Gipsy Hill Brewery Taproom, The Glitch, Golden Goose Theatre, Mondo Taproom, Network Theatre, Omnibus Theatre, The Railway Clapham, Streatham Space Project and White Bear Theatre. A further eight venues are involved as part of ChooSE27 Festival: Badger Badger, Queen of the South, South London Theatre, St Luke’s Church, The Book & Record Bar, The Great North Wood, West Norwood Cemetery and West Norwood Picture House.

Bread and Roses Theatre is 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.

ChooSE27 Comedy Festival, the first ever West Norwood Comedy Festival, runs from 5th – 12th October. Expect a huge array of hilarious shows from rubber duck-wielding cabaret to stars of Taskmaster, podcast recording in the cemetery and Dungeons and Dragons in their new board game cafe, all concluding with their charity gala show at the iconic St.Luke's Church. In association with Good Ship Comedy and Choose SE27.

19 September – 20 October

Full programme here: lambethfringe.com