6.16°C The Mercury Theatre has revealed an impressive lineup of shows over the next year, promising an exciting mix of drama, comedy, music, and live experiences for 2025.
MERCURY THEATRE
James Graham’s powerful new adaptation of Alan Bleasdale’s BAFTA award-winning TV series Boys from the Blackstuff comes to Colchester direct from the National Theatre and the West End from 28th-31st May 2025. The play, directed by Kate Wasserberg, follows Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser as they play the game: find jobs, avoid the ‘sniffers’ and see if they can have a laugh along the way.
Pam Ayres will return to the Mercury Theatre on 2nd March 2025 to talk about her latest book, Doggedly Onward – A Life in Poems, 1970 to 2020s. Pam has gathered her career’s work of poetry into this book, which traces the course of her life and illustrates how her work has provoked laughter and some tears to people around the world.
The Masked Singer and In With a Shout star Joel Dommett returns to his stand-up roots with a brand-new show for 2025, which will visit the Mercury Theatre on 1st May 2025 at 7:30pm.
Award-winning full-mask maestros Vamos Theatre will bring their show Boy on the Roof to the Mercury Theatre on 6th March 2025 at 7:30pm. The show follows the story of a cross-generational friendship between teenager Liam, who has ADHD, and his 91-year-old neighbour, Albert. Performed without words, it has been created through Community Conversations across the UK, gathering people’s experiences of ADHD, loneliness, ageing, connection and community.
The Last Leg and Rob Beckett’s Smart TV star Josh Widdicombe will warm up his Work-in-Progress show on 3rd April 2025 ahead of his brand-new nationwide tour later this year.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of her global bestseller, Kate Mosse will present her one-woman show, Labyrinth Live: Unlocking the Secrets of the Labyrinth, at the Mercury Theatre on 4th April 2025. This dazzling, immersive theatre experience features music, imagery, and film, guiding audiences through the history and mystery of the Languedoc region. Kate revisits wars, conspiracy theories and Grail legends, revealing the inspirations and experiences that shaped the beloved classic Labyrinth.
Multi award-winning, BAFTA-nominated writer and comedian Mark Steel will bring his new tour, The Leopard in My House, to the theatre on 16th April 2025. The topic? His battle with throat cancer. A battle he is winning (thankfully) and which only his rapier wit could fashion a comedy tour show out of. Cancer has done nothing to dull Mark’s acute political observations or quash his “frankly bonkers” energy: you will laugh, you will cry, but you’ll laugh again and again and again.
Confessional multi-award-winning comedian Suzi Ruffell brings her brand-new show, The Juggle, to the theatre on 10th September 2025.
Other shows heading to the Mercury Theatre include That’s So 90s (20th February 2025, Country Roads (12th April 2025), The Spice Girls Experience (25th April 2025), and Drag Me to the 90s (2nd May 2025).
MERCURY STUDIO
The Astonishing Adventures of Kitty and Peg, playing at the Mercury Studio on 8th March 2025, is a hilarious two-hander set in 1745 at the Theatre Royal. Watch as Kitty Clive and Peg Woffington, after being sacked, resort to fake news, fights, and accidental poisoning. Will they survive? A fast-paced, cheeky period farce with women wrestling!
Toxic, playing the Mercury Studio from 13th-14th March 2025, follows a chance meeting on a hook-up app as it sets two damaged thirty-something hearts on a spectacular collision course. He is HIV+ and drowning in shame. They are one microaggression away from a full-on meltdown. Born into Thatcher’s Britain of race riots and rampant homophobia and growing up in the shadow of Aids and Section 28, the pair form a trauma bond so tight that they might just survive it all. But sometimes survival means knowing when to leave.
Eastern Angles brings the show Sophia to the Mercury Studio from 20th-21st March 2025. Daughter of the last Maharajah of Punjab, Sophia spent her childhood at Elveden Hall in Suffolk and faced years of loss and mourning before embarking on a life-changing journey to her family’s homeland in India. This epic new drama explores Sophia’s life, uncovering the story of this unknown lioness of women’s suffrage and her part in some of the defining moments of British Indian history.
Whole, written and performed by Emma Spearing and directed by Kirsty Housley, will be performed in the Mercury Studio on 9th April 2025. Whole is a show about 2 people – one is on stage, the other isn’t. Emma’s been looking for ways to fill the gaping hole her identical twin sister’s death left behind. So, she thought she’d make a show for them. Only it’s proving a little tricky because Emma doesn’t like doing things on her own.
Matthew Seager’s five star, 4 times Moliere Award winning drama In Other Words – Music & Dementia will run in the Mercury Studio from 25th-26th April 2025. Connected by the music of Frank Sinatra, this intimate, humorous and deeply moving drama examines the power of music, memory and the nature of enduring love.
January 2025 will also see new terms of the Mercury Theatre’s creative engagement activities: Tots Twinkles, Tots Stars, Musical Theatre Dance, Senior Social Club, Pilates, Zumba and Mercury Adult Company.
Reserve your tickets today at mercurytheatre.co.uk or call 01206 573948.
