SUNDAY

The woods are calling; step beneath the canopy and follow the scent of sugar! Two children find themselves abandoned in the forest and encounter a house of confectionary that is more than what it seems. Hansel & Gretel tells the classic Grimm's tale through mesmerising shadow puppetry, storytelling and music. For adults and children (recommended 4+).

The Clockwork Moth are a multimedia arts duo, in collaboration with other artists, who specialise in shadow theatre. Highly intricate, funny and atmospheric, Hansel & Gretel is a new reworking of a 2019 commissioned by The National Trust for Wray Castle in the Lake District.

"...twilight entertainment, a place of dim light and mysterious figures emerging from the night. I almost envy the very young children in the audience; this will be something to linger in their dreams, a sibilant whisper interrupting their future lives as adults. Whispering of magic in the dark." 

Dangerous Dave, infinitely more ‘daft’ than ‘dangerous’, and his ridiculous sidekick, Herbert Lemon, present some of the most mind-bindingly silly stunts ever performed . . .  ever! Marvel as this miniature superhero fights his way out of a wet paper bag . . . climbs the slippery pole of peril to plunge into a domestic food processor . . . escapes from the pickled egg jar of DOOM . . . and becomes the fearless inhuman Cannon Ball!!

'Dangerous Dave has got to be one of the zaniest, funniest, family shows I have seen in a long time’ - Natalie Kidman - Black Country touring.

'Transcends the boundary between adult and kids’ entertainment - fantastic!’ - Glenn Tilbrook.

Dangerous Dave appeared on CBBC's ‘The Slammer’ - July 2004.

Lucy has moved back to the village after getting an unexplained illness. Watching the world from  her window each day, the sounds of village life slowly become ‘irritants’ that prick away at the rage  she’s been harbouring all these years. When her obsession helps solve a local burglary, she is swept  out of her convalescence chambers into the hub of village life to help tackle crime. But her rage  isn’t going anywhere, and soon she’ll be faced with the thing that will surely send her over the edge.  

Bringing her dry wit and upbeat style, this is a one woman show written and performed by Louisa  Beadel. It’s for Agatha Christie fans, it’s for people intrigued by small communities, it’s for people  who want to bend their moral compass for a while and explore what it means to express rage.  

Louisa is an actor and musician from Totnes, Devon. Her credits include Call the Midwife (BBC),  Fame (West End/UK tour), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Old Vic), King Lear  (Shakespeare’s Globe), and Fisherman’s Friends the Musical (UK/Canada Tour).  

Joy Scrolling 

Stories, songs and moving pictures to uplift and delight

Come and share a feast for the imagination with three wonder-filled visual storytellers. They will take you on a sensory journey to magical places with stunning artwork, enthralling stories, songs and quirky puppets. 

Bronia Evers, Sara Hurley and Wendy Dacre tell stories and sing songs using ‘crankies’. A ‘crankie’ is a picture story on a scroll that is hand ‘cranked’ between two spools within a box. Linked to early moving image, crankies are a kind of slow cinema, analogue viewing for digital times. 

Join Bronia, Sara and Wendy for a unique and entertaining experience for children and adults alike. 

Recommended for 5 to 105 year olds. 

Walking, Falling, Getting up... Again is a devised performance by professional and non-professional actors from South Devon that looks at the causes of overt and covert depression in men and how the consequences of shame and grandiosity often contribute to addiction, suicide, difficulties relating, violence and war. You can expect a rollercoaster of unexpected real and fictional events, clichés, some laughter, some pain and some tender moments. With some humour, improvisation, words, dancing, red noses, music,  projections and more, Walking, Falling, Getting up ... Again asks what it means to be and become a man. 

A night of comedy, music and poetry for the ages, Lost Mythos is a parish council meeting like no other. 

Fresh from their recent album collaboration, the haunting soundscapes of Mara Simpson and the words of acclaimed poet JLM Morton will take us back to a forgotten Albion. Meanwhile, comic Emma Kernahan guides us through this mythical meeting agenda, blending unruly local folklore and stories from modern rural life. Ideal for fans of history, magic, and neighbourhood Facebook groups.

To grab your seat at this gathering of the Ledbury Mythical Entities, you can send a portent, cast a curse tablet into the River Leadon, or book a ticket via the website.

A performance art theatre adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s elegy to loneliness, grief, and transformation.

A man sits alone, wrapped in memory and inertia. Like Pinocchio, he is not quite real—Poe’s haunted narrator flickers at the edges of his own shape. Surrounded by old books and flickering screens, he is dead in life, overstimulated and under-chased. In today’s world, he might be obsessively scrolling for bad news, caught in the endless echo of digital noise. Until—something taps. A bird enters. And then real death, maybe.

The Raven is a solo multimedia performance that reimagines Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic poem for the contemporary moment. Currently in development The Raven fuses physical theatre, poetic text, and live video, the work teeters between theatre and performance art, asking: What is it that’s frozen within us? What part of ourselves cannot move on? What knocks, asking to be transformed?

Created and performed by Charles Sandford, The Raven speaks to the haunted spaces of modern life: isolation, grief, technology, and the possibility of becoming whole again. It is both an elegy and an invitation.

 DOUBLE BILL 

What does it feel like? is a solo performance exploring the body as a site of experience, personal history and selfhood. The performer connects and disconnects from the world we share, navigating their way through vignettes recalled from the merging of real and imagined situations as they seek connection and understanding, attempt to explain the unexplainable, confront bodily alienation, and move through cycles of birth, decay, and renewal. This intimate, visceral journey challenges our perception of wellbeing and identity. Autobiographical somatic writings echo through the work, woven into an original soundscape created with South West musician Grace Lightman.

Every year I forget about the wallflowers. Every year they appear.

The world hurtles and roars and it’s easy to feel lost in it and I am totally insignificant and so is a mayfly and yet… and yet.

Mayfly is a new dance work exploring what remains of a moment, what lives and what is lost, in the fleeting and the constant. 

Things lie patient, things alter and things continue as they always have. In the seed and the permafrost and the child’s eye.

Featuring live electroacoustic music by Tom Parker.

Tears of Joy follows three women (a Daughter, Mother, Grandmother) as they negotiate the ebbs and flows

of motherhood, grief and intergenerational care. It is a visually rich piece that addresses the struggle to find the light in the shade, the play takes place around a bathtub.

‘Scoop her up, tuck her in, hold her hand and I put her in my pocket’

Tears of Joy reveals the mental health of the mother whilst we explore the family's relationship to memory and the past. Written with expression of care and support through a struggling mother, daughter and

grandmother and their endless intergenerational giving, we bear witness to their utmost vulnerabilities. 

Sexting in your 80s, knitting kinks and discovering Grandad’s penchant for a Sunday blow job - this stand up / poetry show unpacks explaining your queer identity (non-binary, pansexual) to your 86 year old Nan. Expect butt plugs, pegging dildos and maybe even a few stray tears from this wildly explicit, unexpectedly heartwarming solo show. Better known for their work as a writer & director (Sherlock Holmes and the PoisonWood (Watermill), Little Prince (Taunton Brewhouse) and In the Willows (Exeter Northcott & UK tour), Ledbury Poetry Slam Winner P Burton-Morgan returns to the stage in this no-holds-barred poetry show. Funny, sexy & queer - bring your Nan (but maybe warn her first.)

P Burton-Morgan Poetry Biog

Since 2005 P Burton-Morgan has been  founder & Artistic Director of Metta Theatre, for which they have written & directed over 30 productions. As a poet they have been published in Propel Magazine, anthologized by Arachne press, The Chimes and they’ve performed at Primadonna Festival, Hot Flush, Hook Up Culture, Diversion, Dirty Laundry and Ledbury Poetry Festival where they won the 2024 Ledbury Poetry Slam. Their debut poetry pamphlet Solitary Animal Mother was published by Fifty Foot Press in 2025.

Matt Harvey and Jazzient join forces to increase the sum of their parts. 

No, that's not euphemism, it's the closing event of the Totnes Fringe Festival where music meets humour for laughs, music, bemusement and dance! Matt Harvey has been entertaining audiences as a writer and poet, enemy of all that’s difficult and upsetting, Matt’s way with words has taken him from Totnes to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships via Saturday Live, the Edinburgh Festival and the Work section of the Guardian. Jazz/rock duo Jazzient have been moving people to dance since 2020 with their combination of saxes, guitars, vocals, looping and electronics, creating witty songs, thoughtful ambient music and dance tracks.

Matt, Pete and Bev have collaborated before with a performance in St Marys Church, however this time, there will be more with added visuals and new fusions of their works.

Prepare to party for a lively last night of laughter, music and dance in the biggest ballroom in town!