From darkly comic cabaret to tender explorations of identity, migration and memory, Lowry continues to showcase innovative contemporary theatre with an absorbing programme spanning satire, social critique and transcendent spirituality.
Here are 5 must-see highlights from the upcoming schedule.
On Thu 7 May, Mohit Mathur’s poignant one-man play follows Uday Kumar, a Delhi call centre worker whose utopian fantasies of British life spill into reality after a chance conversation. What begins as aspiration rapidly deteriorates into relatable disillusionment, as dreams of affluence meet the harsher edges of migration and labour against the sobering backdrop of the UK care sector.
Directed by Phil Willmott, Dial 1 for UK expertly balances humour with an unflinching social lens, interrogating the systems and preconceptions that shape the British sense of belonging with an intimate, urgent rendering of migrant life in the UK.
Blending autobiographical storytelling with bold physicality and biting wit, Olga Kaleta’s Period Drama offers a surreal, darkly comedic exploration of identity, recovery and anxiety in a world where fear seems a natural response.
Flitting between morbid humour and visceral imagery, the deeply personal show examines hollow conceptions of wellness through a feminist prism, folding in slasher flicks, bloody underwear and the existential dilemmas of insects along the way.
A weekend of children’s parties becomes a rattling pressure cooker of social performance, class insecurity and simmering sleep deprivation in a subversive new comedy from The Wardrobe Ensemble.
As adults circle one another over snacks and small talk, long-held tensions begin to surface, unleashing a comical yet endlessly resonant fever dream in which the internal challenges, emotional weight and outright absurdity of modern parenting threaten to burst forth.
★★★★ “a relatable, silly and charming depiction of the chaos and pressures of parenting” – The Stage
★★★★ “Party Season is a play full of unexpected depth, which still offers plenty of opportunities to chuckle at the bizarre truths of parenting.” – What’s On Stage
★★★★★ “Party Season is theatre gold, offering a careful balance between comedy and raw emotional storytelling” – A Small Mind at the Theatre
Drawing on the legacy of pioneering Black American sopranos Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle, Le Gateau Chocolat’s Spirituals arrives at the end of May as both an homage and reinvention, threading a tapestry from music, memory and identity into an epiphanous tribute to Black Queer excellence.
Created in collaboration with renowned Musical Director Allyson Devenish (NitroVoX) and celebrated 90s frontman, vocalist, essayist and historian, Dr. David McAlmont, Spirituals delivers ‘a Sunday Service like no other’, transporting the congregation on a rousing, reverent voyage of the soul where drag and diaspora convene to explore the rich complexity of songs born from slavery and how they beget salvation.
- Words:
- Wolf McFarlane
- Published on:
- Fri 1 May 2026
An end-of-the-pier fantasia refracted through climate anxiety and late capitalism, Mr. Blackpool arrives in a shower of sequins and searing cultural commentary, presented in garish technicolor by the award-winning Harry Clayton-Wright.
Drawing on Blackpool’s rich, bawdy entertainment lineage, Clayton-Wright’s new production excavates beneath the rhinestones to uncover something more unsettling, as personal histories and seaside mythology collide with contemporary politics in a playfully abrasive and gleefully camp show, led by four performers in a blend of cabaret, magic, dance and drag.