Birdcatcher adds The Lowry, Nottingham Playhouse and Hereford to its 2027 tour

The autumn dates sold out. Now Birdcatcher is moving into bigger rooms: Pentabus has added Hereford College of Arts (2 February), The Lowry (5-6 February) and Nottingham Playhouse (25-27 February) to the play's 2027 tour.

The new stops sit alongside the runs already on the schedule at Ludlow Assembly Rooms, Bristol Old Vic and the Minerva Theatre at Chichester Festival Theatre. The tour then finishes with four weeks in Park90 at Park Theatre from 2-27 March 2027, a London run that was confirmed as part of the venue's Park90 line-up earlier this week. Press night is at Bristol Old Vic on 27 January.

It is quite a step up. Laura Waldren's play opened this autumn at Middle Child's new theatre on Humber Street in Hull, then spent two weeks on a rural circuit of Yorkshire and Shropshire, which is the kind of touring Pentabus, based in Shropshire, has been doing for more than five decades.

Lucy Mangan plays Eliza, who is coming of age inside an apocalyptic high-control group, surrounded by people convinced there is no future worth planning for. The tone is billed as funny and dark at once. Elle While, Pentabus's BAFTA-winning artistic director, directs.

Pentabus produces the show with Papatango Theatre Company and the Hull new-writing company Middle Child. Set and costume design are by Amy Jane Cook, lighting by Jessie Addinall, sound by Helen Skiera and movement by Asha Jennings-Grant. Samuel Brewer is access consultant and Emma Sylvester is casting director.

Waldren, who is from Hull, won the 2023 Papatango Prize with her debut, Some Demon. It premiered at the Arcola Theatre in June 2024 before a sell-out transfer to Bristol Old Vic, and she was Pentabus's writer-in-residence in 2023. Mangan's stage credits include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre, The Manningtree Witches at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and Queen Margaret at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

While said of the expanded tour:

"It's been an absolute joy to take Birdcatcher into rural communities this autumn and see audiences respond so powerfully to Laura's extraordinary writing and Lucy's remarkable performance. We're thrilled to be bringing the production back in the spring, reaching even more audiences through our expanded UK tour and a four-week run in London. It's particularly exciting to see a play that began its life in Ludlow and East Yorkshire, and toured village halls now heading to some of the country's leading theatres."

The production has also released a trailer, cut by Triple Dot Makers.