Udderbelly and London Wonderground Merge into One Huge South Bank Festival

Underbelly is thrilled to announce details of Underbelly Festival - a new multi-arts extravaganza on London's South Bank running from 28 April - 30 September.

Underbelly Festival will build on the success of Udderbelly Festival and LonDon Wonderground - two of the capital's biggest festivals of their kind over the past eight and five years respectively - taking place on the same site and continuing to present London's largest programme of affordable comedy, circus, cabaret and children's shows, in a city-centre festival environment with a great range of street food and one of the largest outdoor bars in London.

Since 2009, just under a million people have bought tickets to shows at Udderbelly Festival and LonDon Wonderground. Underbelly Festival will consolidate the company's two established South Bank festivals into one enormous festival experience, which will become a London hub for the Underbelly brand as the company continues to expand its operations both as a producer of live events and festivals, and of shows and tours.

Highlights of Underbelly Festival's 2017 season include:

· London premiere of Driftwood from acclaimed Australian circus company Casus (Knee Deep), described as "awe-inspiring" by The Guardian's Lyn Gardner.

· London premiere of Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit Catch Me (Attrape Moi) from Flip FabriQue, the impossibly athletic Quebecois troupe that "projects an irrepressible spirit of fun" with "acts that don't seem humanly possible" according to the New York Times.

· UK premiere and longest ever London run from the original cocks of the walk, the cult boylesque cirque-cabaret act known as Briefs, who will unveil their first new show in four years following their internationally acclaimed Second Coming.

Joining them will be a cavalcade of the very finest in stand-up, musical, alternative and sketch comedy, as well as cabaret, circus, puppetry, magic, and family entertainment with something to suit all ages, and shows on every day. Highlights on sale this week include James Acaster, Al Murray, Sara Pascoe, Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Ed Gamble, Angelos and Barry, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Gameshows, House of Burlesque and Stephen K Amos. (See full listings below).

Underbelly Directors Ed Bartlam and Charlie Wood said:

"We're incredibly excited about Underbelly Festival, which is the natural progression for our hugely popular Udderbelly and LonDon Wonderground festivals.

"Consolidating these events into one Underbelly Festival will make for a more joined-up and better festival experience for customers. We also wanted to link our London festivals more closely to the Underbelly brand. As a company we're growing rapidly, with a number of really exciting new projects in the pipeline, and Underbelly Festival is a huge part of this growth.

"This year's programme is one of our strongest yet on the Southbank and we're delighted to continue our commitment to bring London's largest programme of affordable live entertainment to the heart of the capital.

"We are also delighted to continue our partnership with Hilton Hotels and Resorts as headline sponsors of Underbelly Festival. They are a great brand to work with and they share our vision for wanting to bring fantastic live entertainment to as many people as possible."

More shows for the inaugural Underbelly Festival will be announced in the coming weeks.

* Festival subject to planning and licensing.

About Underbelly

Underbelly is a UK based live entertainment company. Their events and festivals division operates one of the largest operations at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, selling 234,000 tickets for over 140 shows over 25 days in 2016.

This year marks the ninth year of Underbelly on the Southbank, with Udderbelly and LonDon Wonderground festivals - already two of the biggest multi-arts offerings in London - joining forces for the first Underbelly Festival.

Elsewhere Underbelly also produces Edinburgh's Christmas, Christmas in Leicester Square, Udderbelly Festival in Hong Kong, West End Live in Trafalgar Square, Pride in London for Westminster City Council and the Society of London Theatre, and produced the 2015 Rugby World Cup Fanzone in Richmond.

Through their Underbelly Productions arm they produce and promote live shows in London's West End, throughout the UK and on tour internationally. In 2016 Underbelly sold over 1.3 million tickets to their various events. www.underbelly.co.uk

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