Riverside Studios Announces Line Up Of Shows For Bitesize Festival

Creative Director Rachel Tackley, Executive Director Tony Lankester and the whole team at the West London venue Riverside Studios have announced the lineup for the fifth incarnation of their acclaimed Bitesize Festival, which gives emerging theatre-makers the chance to make their London stage debuts.

The festival, from 1 – 28 July, offers emerging artists the chance to create, rehearse and produce their show, with in-house technical equipment, front-of-house and back-office services, and full-service marketing support provided by Riverside Studios - giving creatives invaluable experience of producing a show to a professional standard. Previous festivals have included theatre, comedy, burlesque, improv, musicals, children's shows, dance, immersive theatre, spoken word, gig, drag and cabaret, with end of festival awards given by a panel jury of creatives and specialists drawn from across the London creative industries.

The lineup for Studio 3 consists of: Bitesize award-winning Matthew Lyon's part autobiographical, part spoken-word solo show A Small God (22-25, 28 July); a play about the raw realities of love, All of us flawed but still something to love (25-27 July); hip-hop meets Arabesque and Anatolian rock musical Bacha Posh (8-14 July); 1969 Easter Sunday set family drama Blessings (10, 13 & 14 July); dark psychosexual horror comedy adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman, Dangled (22, 23, 25, 27 & 28 July); acclaimed 2023 Edinburgh Fringe play Deuteronomy (4-7 July); contemporary coming of age story Home Sweet Home (8, 9, 11-14 July); Danielle James' electric ode to female friendship, Knives and Forks (15-17, 19 & 21 July); a play about board gaming loving best friends in Mandem (20-21 July); dark comedy about the true cost of emotional detachment, Mercurial (11, 13 & 19 July); multi-award winning South African comedian and actor Rob van Vuuren's Gold Standard Bank Ovation Award-winning show Namaste Bae (23, 24 & 26-28 July); dance double bill Nor I and Negotiating Space (3-5 July); magically absurd comedy Performer's Travel Guide (5-7 July); 2005 Dublin true life based play Scissor Sisters (16 & 18 July); Love Song Productions' new play with original soundtrack about queer friendship, Seconds To Midnight (18-21 July); the riotous, no-holds-barred adult comedy romp through the twisted tale of The Gingerbread Boudoir: The Untold Story of Hansel and Gretel (15-19 July); a play filled with mystery, humour and self-realisation, The UnderNeath (3-6 July) and Psychonaut Theatre's thought-provoking look into human history in The W.I.G Of Life: A Conference (9 & 11-14 July).

The lineup for the River Room consists of: the story of a transgender man navigating gay hook-up culture in Bunny Man (5, 6, 18 & 25 July); a one-person show about an Indian man's obsession to move to Britain, Dial 1 For UK (25, 27 & 28 July); musical soirée Divas Of Jazz (18 July); a new play exploring gender dysphoria, bodily autonomy and celebrity crushes from a trans perspective, Fuckboy (8, 10 & 14 July); Breeders and Rebel Cheer Squad star Samia Rida's one-woman show Kidnap (4, 5, 7, 12, 19 & 21 July); sister road trip play Lemons (6, 10, 11, 13 & 19 July); the bilingual play exploring isolation and childhood abuse, Los Tres Cerditos (19-21, 26 & 28 July); Bonnie Oddie airs her dirty laundry in That's Why Mums Go To Switzerland (7, 11-13, 18 & 27-28 July) and inspired by the events of the Depp v Heard trial, Jen Tucker's The Defamation (17, 20, 21 & 25 July).

The Bitesize Festival Pass can now be purchased for only £60, giving audiences the chance of a pair of tickets to every single show in the festival – with tickets for individual shows at £10.

Creative Director Rachel Tackley said, “Bitesize Festival is a real highlight of our year at Riverside – it gets bigger and more extraordinary every year. Once again, we are offering our audiences a huge choice of exciting, entertaining and thought-provoking theatre at a very affordable price. I can't wait to welcome such talented creative people into the Riverside Studios this July!”

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