New visiting shows for 2024

Announcing nine exciting new shows for Jan - June 2024, including the incredible Eliza Carthy MBE, The Snake Davis Band, the return of the ever-popular Blackeyed Theatre, and unofficial Twitter Poet Laureate, Brian Bilston.

Feel Me (27 & 28 February): Who do you care about and why? This new interactive theatre show is from devised verbatim theatre specialists, The Paper Birds. Feel Me asks, via your mobile phone, who and what you care about from the stories unfolding live on stage in front of you. A stunning mixture of live performance, film, projection, dance and music, Feel Me will explore the different lenses through which we are told, and connect to, stories in the modern digital world. 

The Light House (29 February): Love is a complicated business. It gets even more complicated when the person you love doesn't want to be alive. Tender, funny and defiantly hopeful, Alys Williams’ The Light House is a real life story of falling in love and staying in love, even when the lights go out and you're lost in the dark. It's a love letter to life.

Behold Ye Ramblers (5 March): A new play from Townsend Production, by Neil Gore in association with The Society for the Study of Labour History. From the voices of ramblers and campaigners, to the songs and poetry inspired by past and current struggles, Behold Ye Ramblers is a new play about The Clarion newspaper and the organisations formed by its readership, including famous rambling club, The Sheffield Clarion Ramblers.

Oh What A Lovely War (6-9 March): This year marks the 60th anniversary of this cornerstone of modern musical theatre and one of the greatest stage satires: an extraordinary theatrical journey bringing to life the folly, farce and tragedy of World War One. A treat from Blackeyed Theatre, whose Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Four, Sherlock Holmes and the Valley of Fear, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde have played to packed houses at the SJT in recent years.

Fat Chance (13 March): “I’m not saying I’m not beautiful. I’m saying I’m fat AND beautiful.” Meet Rachel – a 20-something actress whose funny, celebratory and politically powerful one-woman play explores her true-life experience of weight gain from size 8 to 18. From audition nerves and throwaway comments to literally breaking a leg this play is for anyone who’s felt like they had to shrink themselves; anyone who's adapted to be more palatable to others; anyone who's ever put on or lost weight and been treated differently; anyone who had free school dinners; anyone who feels they don’t fit. 

Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham (17 March): Aly Bain is widely regarded as Scotland's supreme fiddler – arguably the finest of all time. Phil Cunningham is a world famous accordion player and composer, once nominated by The Scotsman as one of ‘Scotland's most influential people’. They’ve toured together since 1986 to packed concert halls all over the world: witty and humorous banter sitting alongside tunes that tug the heartstrings, and joyous reels and melodies that get feet tapping. 

Brian Bilston (21 March): Described as the Banksy of poetry, and Twitter’s unofficial Poet Laureate, and with over 400,000 followers on social media, Brian Bilston is one of the UK’s most beloved modern poets. 

Snake Davis (22 March): An unforgettable evening with one of the world's most sought-after saxophonists, renowned for his legendary solos on tracks like Lisa Stansfield's Change, M-People's Search For A Hero and Moving On Up. He's collaborated with a diverse range of artists from James Brown and Tina Turner to Paul McCartney, The Eurythmics, and Amy Winehouse. Expect a mix of original compositions and beloved sax classics like Baker Street and Night Train.

Eliza Carthy (21 June): If there’s one musician who embodies the dynamism and vitality of the current English folk revival, it’s Eliza Carthy MBE. As the daughter of folk legends Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, Eliza grew up immersed in the world of traditional music and from an early age was championed by John Peel, Andy Kershaw and Billy Bragg.  

Tickets are now on sale to SJT Circle members, and on general sale from 10am on Wednesday 4 October.