Incoming Festival Comes to HOME Manchester

After making its debut Manchester appearance at HOME in 2018, the annual Incoming Festival - a partnership between A Younger Theatre, New Diorama Theatre, and HOME - returns to HOME between 24 - 30 June 2019.

Curated by festival directors Eleanor Turney, Jake Orr and David Byrne, and a panel of theatre critics (Lyn Gardner, Fergus Morgan of The Stage, Exeunt Magazine's editorial team, and Critics of Colour), the festival - now in its sixth year, and for which all tickets are £5 - will be presented simultaneously at the New Diorama Theatre in London, the Tobacco Factory Theatres in Bristol, making its first appearance in the festival, as well as at HOME.

Incoming Festival is a celebration of some of the best new theatre companies and aims to introduce audiences to some of the most exciting and innovative theatre companies from the UK and beyond.

The programme covers new writing, physical theatre, clowning, hard-hitting drama, devised work, and gig theatre. With its low ticket price of just £5 per show, and eclectic mix of shows, Incoming Festival encourages audiences to take a chance on something new.

"Incoming Festival is one of the best things we do at New Diorama," says David Byrne, Artistic and Executive Director, New Diorama Theatre, and Co-Director, Incoming Festival.

"It's brilliant that we're able to share some of the best theatre companies working all over the country with the adventurous audiences which HOME has been so successful in attracting. This year's line-up is by far the best we've ever had at Incoming. The festival is a brilliant launch-pad for the most exciting companies making work in the UK, and offers an amazing deal for artists and audiences."

This year's festival features some of the most exciting emerging companies from across the UK and Ireland, including Strictly Arts Theatre Company with their Fringe hit Freeman by Camilla Whitehill; Dublin-based Malaprop with their Edinburgh success Everything Not Saved; The Pappy Show, following sell-out runs at Vault Festival and New Diorama Theatre of Boys, presents their new follow-up show Girls; Wildcard presents their sell-out Edinburgh Fringe gig-theatre show Electrolyte; Police Cops, following a world tour of their show Police Cops In Space present their new show black comedy Badass Be Thy Name, a gritty comedy-drama that turns into a vampire-slaying horror epic; while Lost Watch also return to Incoming Festival following their sell-out Left My Desk with their new show Socks and Shorts Included.

The other shows are Ugly Bucket's Bost-Uni Plues; Collide Theatre Company's presents Metamorphosis; both from the National Student Drama Festival; Burnt Lemon Theatre with their show The Half Moon Shania - for which they have won an Untapped Award earning them a full Edinburgh Fringe run for their next show Tokyo Rose - directed by Emily Louizou, a Birkbeck Theatre placement director at HOME last year; This Noise presenting No One Is Coming To Save You; and New Zealand-based Zanetti Productions with The Basement Tapes. Sounds Like Chaos bring their new show created for and with young people WOW EVERYTHING IS AMAZING, and multi-award winning Chalk Line Theatre present Testament. Sleepless Theatre Company present Nine Foot Nine, incorporating BSL and captioned text.

PERFORMANCE CALENDAR - ALL TICKETS £5

Mon 24 June 2019, 7pm

Burnt Lemon Theatre presents The Half Moon Shania

Punk rock girl band The G Stringz are on the pub tour of their twenties. In one final bid for a bit of recognition, the girls have to whip out every trick in the book. And it's a big, dirty, bitch of a book...

Mon 24 June 2019, 8.30pm

Strictly Arts Theatre Company presents Freeman

Inspired by the first man in America to plead 'insanity' as his defence, Freeman knits six true stories which expose the link between systemic racism and the decimation of the self

Tue 25 June 2019, 7pm

Chalk Line Theatre presents Testament

Max is in a car crash with his brother and girlfriend, Tess, who dies in the accident. Following his loss, Max tries to take his own life and fails, but when he wakes up, he believes she is still alive. Testament explores suicide, loss and guilt

Tue 25 June 2019, 8.30pm

Zanetti Productions presents The Basement Tapes

Following her grandmother's death, a girl discovers a series of mysterious tape recordings while clearing out her basement. Hearing the tapes for the first time, things start to unravel... Twin Peaks meets Serial in this Fringe First-winning mystery

Wed 26 June 2019, 7pm

Police Cops presents Badass Be Thy Name

This gritty Manchester-set kitchen-sink comedy drama turns into a vampire slaying horror epic. Complete with a 90s rave soundtrack, supercharged physical comedy and more vampires that you can shake a stake at!

Wed 26 June 2019, 8.30pm

Malaprop Theatre presents Everything Not Saved

Come see ex-lovers argue about when they were happiest. Come see police officers rewrite history. They don't mean to, but they do. Come see Rasputin dance like no one's watching. Also the Queen is there. We're going to feed the present to the past. It's a kind of ritual. A show about memory (but not nostalgia)

Thu 27 June 2019, 7pm

Ugly Bucket presents Bost-Uni Plues

Everyone says that university is the best three years of your life! So what happens next? What happens when you still have questions, but everyone expects you to have all the answers? Based on true stories join three clowns as they leave the comfort of timetables, deadlines, and student life behind and enter the real world.

Thu 27 Jun 2019, 8.30pm

Collide Theatre Company presents Metamorphosis

In the course of one night a beloved son turns into a hated freak. But is he really different? Is there really a reason for his family to be as appalled? A new dance-theatre piece inspired by Franz Kafka's novella.

Fri 28 Jun 2019, 7pm

The Pappy Show presents Girls

A joyful, fascinating and socially revelatory look at what it means to be a woman in 2019, Girls subverts the myths and stereotypes of the female experience with a combination of beautiful, playful movement-driven visual theatre, powerful and humorous direct address storytelling, and joyous interactive play.

Fri 28 Jun 2019, 8.30pm

Lost Watch presents Shorts and Socks Included

"Some people are on the pitch" screamed BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme in the last seconds of the 1966 World Cup final. In the fever that follows, flagging underwear company Admiral strike a deal designing the away kit for ultimate heavyweights, Leeds United. All they need now is someone to design it. Collars, chevrons, sashes and nylon. Fashion in football is born!

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 7pm

SOUNDS LiKE CHAOS presents WOW! EVERYTHING IS AMAZING

Teenage acting company SOUNDS LiKE CHAOS's latest production is a sci-fi hallucinatory madness, set in the new church of the future. Through an original score, which spans gospel to hip-hop combined with ambitious film, they ask the timeliest of questions: is technology shaping us or are we shaping it?

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 8.30pm

Sleepless Theatre Company presents Nine Foot Nine

What would happen if, over a period of five months, almost every single self-identifying woman in the world grew to be over nine foot tall? Sleepless Theatre Company ask that question, and plenty more besides!

Sun 30 Jun 2019, 7pm

This Noise presents No One is Coming to Save You

An insomniac is watching TV in a language he doesn't understand; a woman is stood in a garden stretching her arms to the sky. The whole world is asleep and something extraordinary is about to happen. This is the strange, funny and hypnotic story of two young lives lived in social, political and economic fear.

Sun 30 Jun 2019, 8.30pm

Wildcard presents Electrolyte

Yorkshire girl Jessie is growing tired of living the hedonistic lifestyle. Travelling south, ostensibly searching for her mother, her journey takes her to places she never imagined she'd experience. A piece of gig theatre that explores mental health for a contemporary audience.

There are also four events in the festival, as follows:

Mon 24 Jun, 11:00 - Fundraising Masterclass with New Diorama Artistic and Executive Director David Byrne

Mon 24 Jun, 15:00 - Dramaturgy and Theatre Making with HOME Associate Director Jude Christian

Tue 25 Jun, 11:00 - Making Your Work More Accessible led by Ben Wilson, Agent For Change at Sheffield Theatres and Artistic Director of Brick Wall Ensemble

Tue 25 Jun, 15:00 - Introduction to Theatre Producing with Jake Orr, producer at Theatre503 and co-director of Incoming Festival

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