Xhloe and Natasha Bring Two Fringe First-Winning Shows to the Soho Theatre This Spring
Shows include A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson Or God: Whoever Reads This First and What If They Ate The Baby?
By: Stephi Wild Feb. 11, 2025
Fresh from their Off-Broadway debut at SoHo Playhouse in New York, fringe favourite duo Xhloe and Natasha will perform their last two Fringe First-winning shows, A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson Or God: Whoever Reads This First and What If They Ate The Baby?, at Soho Theatre. Known for their signature style of clowning, tightly choreographed physicality, sharp script and fast pace, Xhloe and Natasha consistently centre their work around queerness, gender identity and American archetypes. After winning their third consecutive Fringe First in Edinburgh last year, the pair are delighted to return and perform for UK audiences once more. They will be performing the shows on alternating nights between 17th and 29th March.
What If They Ate The Baby? is an absurd and dystopian take on the 1950's American housewife, where audiences are put into the position of surveillant. Created largely in response to the changing laws surrounding reproductive rights in America, the show explores the same menial conversations between neighbors in the context of surveillance, cannibalism, and queerness, all during an idealized period in American history that was marked by paranoia. Playing two post-war suburban housewives, Xhloe and Natasha use double entendre, green spaghetti and a soundtrack complete with Vaudeville to Rap to interrogate gender expectations and the relationship between surveillance and bodily autonomy.
A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson Or God: Whoever Reads This First is a farcical two-hander that blurs the lines of 1960s American Boy Scouts and drafted US Soldiers in Vietnam. Drawing on their own upbringings in military families and being taught that the USA was the greatest country in the world, Xhloe and Natasha play two scouts who directly address the audience, telling stories, playing soldiers and declaring their admiration for current president Lyndon B. Johnson. Exploring children's innocence and their relationship with war as well as the androgyny of gender traits that society allows boys to have, the performance is set to a Beatles' soundtrack, complete with live harmonica and spit-shakes.
Co-writers and performers Xhloe and Natasha said, “We're so excited to return to London and to debut at Soho Theatre. As a result of the recent election in our country, both personal autonomy and the role of the president are a constantly changing conversation. Both of these shows are now over a year old and feel more relevant now than ever, we've been using the political climate to inform the way we continue to develop and update these shows and we are excited to see how audiences respond to them with that context.”
Xhloe and Natasha are a New York City based, writer/performer company of two that has been in collaboration for over a decade, creating absurdist physical theatre, clown, and comedy content often centring around themes of queerness and gender identity. They have collaborated with companies such as the Tank, Dixon Place, the SpaceUK, The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, and Art House Productions INKubator. In recent years, their show A Sleepless Play received a virtual production with Occupy The Stage's Women's Theatre Festival and their show Seven Days To The End of The World received a reading through the Company of Fools Reading Series. They are three-time recipients of the Scotsman Fringe First Award for And Then The Rodeo Burned Down, What If They Ate The Baby? and A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First which premiered at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively.
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