Sam Pay and Rhiannon Skerritt are the cast of Huddle, the Filskit Theatre penguin show for one- to four-year-olds that returns to the Unicorn Theatre for Christmas, from 27 November 2026 to 3 January 2027.
Sam Pay and Rhiannon Skerritt have been named as the cast of Huddle, which is back at the Unicorn Theatre on Tooley Street this winter in a reworked version of the Filskit Theatre production. It runs in the Clore Theatre from Friday 27 November 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027, and the press performance is on Friday 4 December 2026 at 1.30pm.
Pay, a South London actor-musician whose credits include the UK tour of The BFG, is a familiar face at the Unicorn, with Odd and the Frost Giants, The Bolds, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Pinocchio among earlier shows there. Pay has also worked with the RSC on The Merchant of Venice, Tamburlaine, Timon of Athens and Tartuffe, and appeared in Witness for the Prosecution on the South Bank.
Skerritt, who trained at East 15, has also worked at the Unicorn, in The Princess and the Pea, a production that later travelled to the New Victory Theater in New York. Skerritt's other stage credits include The Box of Delights for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe, and screen work includes Andor for Disney+.
The story is set on the Antarctic ice, where Mr Penguin is handed an egg of his own to look after. Once the chick hatches, the new father has to work out parenting as he goes. Filskit tells it with very little dialogue, leaning instead on physical performance, projected animation and sound. The company first made the piece with the Unicorn in 2018, and its 2024 return sold out; this year's staging is a fresh take on that production.
Katy Costigan and Sarah Shephard of Filskit created the show, and Shephard directs. The original design is by Maxwell Nicholson-Lailey, with additional design by Rachel Baynton, lighting by Ric Mountjoy, animation by Ioanna Varsou and composition and sound design by Owen Crouch; Yoyo Yao is associate sound designer.
Shephard said: “We are over the moon to be bringing Huddle back to the Unicorn this Christmas. This show is very special to us as a company, and we feel honoured to be sharing it for the third time at one of our favourite venues. We can’t wait to introduce our Penguin pair to another new generation of theatre goers.”
Over in the Weston Theatre, the Unicorn's Christmas season also brings the world premiere of Santa's First Christmas, with Stephen Kirkham cast as Santa.
Tickets for Huddle cost £18.50-£26.50, and the Clore Theatre sits inside the Unicorn Theatre at 147 Tooley Street, SE1 2HZ.
For more information, visit the official website.
