Garry Starr takes his flipper-footed dash through the Penguin Classics to The Other Palace from 22 October, for a run of ten weeks with tickets currently from £24. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Tickets for Garry Starr: Classic Penguins currently start at £24, and the run at The Other Palace lasts from Thursday 22 October 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027. That is a long stay for a show that is over in little more than an hour, and the 9.15pm starts from Thursday to Saturday say a good deal about the kind of evening it is. It is strictly for over-18s.
Who is starring in Garry Starr: Classic Penguins?
There is one performer. Garry Starr is the stage creation of Damien Warren-Smith, who devised the show and plays it alone. The character is an actor of great ambition and very little restraint, and Warren-Smith has taken him a long way: in 2025 the show was named Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and Best Comedy at both Adelaide Fringe and Fringe World. It returns to London after earlier seasons in the West End and in Edinburgh.
What is Garry Starr: Classic Penguins about?
The premise costs nothing to explain. Starr has decided that books are dying out, and that the way to rescue them is to perform every Penguin Classic ever published, in one evening. He does it mostly undressed and wearing flippers, and the canon goes past at speed, from The Little Prince to Moby Dick. The laughs come from clowning, slapstick and physical theatre rather than from a stand-up set, and a fair share of them land on the more self-important corners of literary culture.
The nudity is the point rather than a passing gag. The venue lists full nudity, strobe lighting and haze, and the 18+ age limit is strict, so anyone booking for a group should make sure everyone knows what they are buying.
Who is behind the production?
Cal McCrystal directs. He is one of the leading specialists in physical comedy in British theatre, and was the physical comedy director on One Man, Two Guvnors. Design is by takis and lighting by Lily Dawford, working from a show devised by Warren-Smith himself. Francesca Moody Productions produces in association with MILKE; the company brought Fleabag and Baby Reindeer to the stage, and this is one of three shows it has placed at The Other Palace this season.
When and where can I see it?
The show plays the main house at The Other Palace, opening on Thursday 22 October 2026 and closing on Sunday 3 January 2027. Start times move around the week: 7pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 9.15pm from Thursday to Saturday, and 5.30pm on Sundays. The running time is 1 hour 5 minutes with no interval, so the Sunday performance leaves the rest of the evening free and the late weekend slots work well after dinner.
Tickets currently start at £24 for Garry Starr: Classic Penguins. Prices move with demand, and the cheapest seats tend to go first at the weekends.
What else should I book if I like it?
Start in the same building. An Oak Tree is another of the Francesca Moody shows at The Other Palace, and puts a different guest actor on stage each night, meeting the script for the first time in front of the audience. Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen completes the same season, so the three can be booked as a set.
For comedy built on things going spectacularly wrong, The Play That Goes Wrong at the Duchess Theatre remains the benchmark. And for another irreverent raid on the classics, Austentatious at the Vaudeville Theatre improvises a lost Jane Austen novel from a title the audience suggests on the night.
