🎠A Cabaret at the End of the World
Newcastle Northern Stage,
Thursday 6 November 2025
At a time when the cultural sector is doing its level best to re-imagine what live performance can be, Harry Clayton-Wright: Mr Blackpool’s Seaside Spectacular arrives like a glitter-bomb lobbed into the heart of the North East. And thank heavens it does. Part cabaret, part séance, part elegy for a lost Britain – this is an “end-of-the-pier show at the end of the world” that invites Newcastle audiences to embrace the spectacle, the satire and the sheer absurdity of survival through sequins.
Blackpool’s own Harry Clayton-Wright is no stranger to boldness. With a track record that includes award-winning theatre (Sex Education), queer heritage projects and even a cameo in Channel 4’s It’s a Sin, Clayton-Wright has long been a disruptive force in British performance art. Now, in collaboration with Marlborough Productions, he brings Mr Blackpool’s Seaside Spectacular to Northern Stage for one night only – Thursday 6 November – in partnership with Curious Arts, the region’s champion of LGBTQIA+ creativity.
🎪 What to Expect
Imagine a seaside postcard – sun-bleached and half-torn – then crank up the saturation, lace it with glitter, and set it against the backdrop of climate collapse or late-stage capitalism (or both). That’s the moodboard. Mr Blackpool’s Seaside Spectacular draws on the kitsch traditions of variety theatre, drag, magic and dance, but filters them through a 21st-century queer lens that’s equal parts homage and radical reclamation.
Clayton-Wright is joined by three Blackpool powerhouses:
-
Oliver Gregory, aka Miss Titty Kaka, an international showgirl and drag sensation with couture credentials and a wicked sense of theatrical mischief.
-
Aysh and Sam De Belle, the married dance duo and cultural agitators behind House of Wingz, who have helped to redefine what community-led performance can look like in the North West.
Together, they form a troupe steeped in the salty air of the Irish Sea but ready to dazzle on a Tyneside stage.
Expect a kaleidoscope of cabaret turns, autobiographical fragments, camp choreography and heartfelt nostalgia. This is theatre that resists neat categorisation – a variety show that knows the variety format is dead but refuses to stop dancing on its grave. There will be high kicks. There may be tears. Almost certainly there will be confetti.
🧵 Why It Matters
For Newcastle, this is more than just another tour stop. It’s a reminder that Northern Stage continues to be one of the most adventurous venues in the UK when it comes to programming queer-led work that challenges, entertains and matters. Partnering with Curious Arts, the theatre is signalling its ongoing commitment to making space for marginalised voices – not as an afterthought, but as centre stage.
And Mr Blackpool’s Seaside Spectacular is not just fun (though it is that, gloriously). It’s also a sly act of cultural archaeology – digging through the candyfloss and donkeys of seaside entertainment to ask what’s left when the tide goes out. What do we hold on to? Whose stories do we preserve? And how do we keep the show going when the world is literally on fire?
In Clayton-Wright’s hands, these questions are approached with both camp audacity and real emotional heft. As he puts it: “At the end of the world there’ll still be a showgirl kicking her legs behind her ears – and thank god for that.”
🎟️ Tickets:
-
Venue: Northern Stage, Newcastle
-
Date: Thursday 6 November 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.