What's on at Cygnet Theatre
Spring 2025
The 39 steps
14th March 2025
7:30pm
Award-winning actor Jonathan Goodwin plays man-on-the-run Richard Hannay, falsely accused of a murder he did not commit. He is pursued across the moors of Scotland by the nefarious Black Stone, a clandestine criminal organization hell-bent on plunging the world into a global war.
In a race against time, Hannay must evade capture and certain death at the hands of the criminals responsible, and prevent the assassination of a foreign dignitary by anarchist spies.
Last Dance Saloon
15th March 2025
7:30pm
There was once an old woman who couldn’t dance. And there was once an old man who couldn’t dance either. She’s from rural Devon, he’s an ex-pat living in Chile - both having been around the block a few times. Each decides on a whim to learn how to tango. In Buenos Aries. They meet, they dance, they tell stories together, and their lives are irrevocably changed.
Last Dance Saloon is two older people being – by turns – playful, silly and serious. It’s about telling stories together, stories full of wit and wonder; about singing and dancing with each other - messages of hope for a shared humanity. It’s about love and legacy and the world we want to leave for future generations.
“You expressed lots of different threads about what it is to be alive and human at this time of my life, in this age. And you wove those threads into something that for me, expressed a beautiful freedom of the dance of the heart. Thank you both for creating something that could do that... it's very special."
multi story theatre company have been creating big stories for smaller spaces for nearly a quarter of a century. Last Dance Saloon springs from that life-experience and decades of theatre-making. The play moves across continents, up into the heavens and deep into the underworld. It marries contemporary political, social and ecological realities with timeless myths.
Join us at our Tango Milonga. Enjoy the show we have prepared for you. If you feel so inclined, there is the opportunity to throw a few shapes yourself at the end of the evening.
bLUE VANGUARD Jazz
27th Mar
7:30pm
Cygnet Theatre are delighted to continue welcoming The Blue Vanguard to it’s new home, for it's regular monthly jazz evening.
The Blue Vanguard is a monthly jazz club dedicated to bringing the finest national and international guests to our home town of Exeter. The club has run successfully since September 2011 and has a loyal following.
With a special guest each month, you'll always hear amazing sounds! March's special guest is Dave Newton!
Get your tickets Now!
Dead on Cue
28th March
7:30pm
A spooky thriller set in the same theatre dressing room, during the same play, but 60 years apart. During both time periods the theatre is hosting a performance of Hamlet where “time is out of joint.” What is the unearthly link between the two productions?
How can the same things be happening to different people 60 years apart? What secrets have been buried in the old dressing room under the stage? Why are the actors fascinated by the old dressing room mirror? Just don’t look into it......you might not like what you see!
First Men in the Moon
29th March 2025
7:30pm
Embark on a hilarious cosmic adventure with a penniless playwright, and a potty professor in this uproarious adaptation of HG Wells’ classic, where moon creatures and typewriters collide!
Meet Bedford, an aspiring playwright on the edge of bankruptcy, and Professor Cavor, a scientific genius on the verge of a discovery that will either change or (just as likely) destroy the world. From the sleepy Kent countryside of 1919 the unlikely duo board a homemade metal space sphere, armed only with avarice and ambition, and boldly go where no one-man show has gone before. Will they find life?
Probably, but not as we know it. The First Men in the Moon is a show packed with comic creativity, dramatic twists and turns, Selenite moon creatures and a Hermes 2000 typewriter.
Written and performed by South West based theatre maker Mark Jardine, this adaptation of The First Men in the Moon is a comic and thrillingly dramatic ride through a Sci-Fi classic from the pen of HG Wells.
Storytelling double bill
4th April 2025
7:30pm
Artemis Storytelling Double Bill
Escape from the humdrum into a world of adventure with the irrepressible Sarah Rundle. Mischievous shape-shifting beasts followed by rebellious tunnelling wives. Picture-theatre, comedy, and audience singalong combine for hilarious uproar and riotous fun. An East-West fusion like never before.
First up…
Naughty Japanese Badgers:
They’re Naughty. They’re Japanese. They’re not actually Badgers.
But they will steal your horse, tip over your bins, set up a romance fraud and shape-shift into an acrobatic teakettle. Sarah uses the ancient Japanese art of Kamishibai picture-storytelling, plus a generous dollop of humour to tell how some unlikely heroes got the better of these mythological trouble-makers.
Followed by…
Women Who Bore Through Walls:
What happens when your husband locks you up and it’s the 16th century and there’s no Hooman Rights? You burrow, that’s what.
Stories of women, from Italy, Morocco, and England, unjustly imprisoned by jealous spouses, all using their intelligence and grit to survive, escape, and thrive. With tips on tunnelling, staying sane, and where to hide your jewellery in an emergency.
“Brilliantly irreverent” “Subversive” “Sparkles with a particularly glorious English humour”
COMING SOON!
flo smith
10th april
7:30pm
From the producer of Old Herbaceous, Three Men in a Boat, What’s Wrong with Benny Hill? and The Essence of Audrey comes a wonderful true story of a remarkably normal woman – Flo Smith.
It’s 1969 and a woman looks back on her life in London. From the Boer War to The Summer of Love, Flo Smith, daughter, sister, wife, mother, widow and grandmother recalls with horror, humour, tears and joy those turbulent times at home and in the world beyond her front door.
Jonathan gee
11th April
7:30pm
Pianist/singer Jonathan Gee is one of the most imaginative composer-pianists operating today.
Jonathan brings his trio to Exeter combining three of his recent shows in one:
His Beatles Reimagined album, Lennon/McCartney songs transformed in a contemporary jazz manner, His 80’s project of rearranged Spandau Ballet, Kate Bush, Wayne Shorter and Micheal Brecker tunes, and original compositions which featured on his latest vocal album The Lions Revisited.
rowan stuart
19th April
7:30pm
South African singer-songwriter Rowan Stuart will make his Exeter debut at the Cygnet Theatre on Saturday 19 April 2025.
With a sound best described as ‘story-driven dream folk pop’. His live performances have him on vocals, guitars and loop station, with Mattie James on bass. Consisting of songs from his 7 albums, as well as re-interpreted classics from some of his favourite songwriters.
cabaret evening
25th April
7:30pm
Join Awkward Pigeon Theatre for an evening of fun and light entertainment!
We present a variety of comic scenes and songs from Tom Lehrer, Victoria Wood and musicals like Cabaret and Hamilton, plus new material written by the company.
Expect a range of humour from wordplay to physical comedy to the surreal, plus a touch of glamour and sparkle.
The bar will be open for drinks and light refreshments, and dressing up for the evening is optional.
Awkward Pigeon are a Cygnet Theatre alumni company based in Devon, whose work “amuses, delights, and baffles in equal measures” (People’s Republic of South Devon).
MAY
Magical Mythologies
2nd May
7:30pm
“Peter Clifford is one of my favourite magicians and one of the loveliest people I know…do everything you can to get tickets!” - Derren Brown.
Discover why you can’t trust your eyes… and you may well not believe your mind, with Peter Clifford’s latest, mind-melting magic show.
In the intimate and exciting space of the Cygnet Theatre, he will weave his magic around stories of life, conjuring and the wonders of the world.
Join him as he plays with puzzles of perception and prestidigitates for you pleasure.
You really have to see it to not believe it.
“Peter Clifford’s love of the art resonates throughout the field of magic bringing life and hope to us all” – David Blaine
cider with rosie
3rd May
7:30pm
Performed by ARKangel
Produced by Giles Shenton
Laurie Lee’s Rich Memoir of Childhood and Awakening
The Last Witness to a Lost Time … Violin, Guitar, Voice, Spoken Word
Capturing Laurie Lee’s richly descriptive language in a powerful narrative, coloured with a feast of music, ARKangel’s ‘Cider with Rosie’ explores Laurie’s much-loved memoir of childhood in an age of dramatic social change … the damp, cramped Cotswold cottage, the rural poverty following the First World War, an explosion of pigeons, Er down under the Varmint and his never to be forgotten encounter with Rosie Burdock!
Through Spoken Word, Violin, Guitar and Song, ARKangel’s recent programmes have been described as ‘Spellbinding’, ‘Utterly Sublime’, ‘Thought Provoking’, with ‘Mesmerizing Storytelling’.
Interwoven with Haunting Traditional Song and the Music of Vaughan Williams, John Ireland, Elgar Debussy, Holst …
Jane Austen Abridged
17th May
7:30pm
Written by Jessica Bedford, Kathryn MacMillan, Charlotte Northeast & Meghan Winch.
After their critically acclaimed, sell-out, two week run back in October, the Alma's in house company are BACK with their smash hit!
One newbie and two self-professed Janeites, through almost all means imaginable, tackle the entire canon of Jane Austen’s works – in just 80 minutes.
Come along for a fun, funny, and fast-paced romp through the masterpieces of Jane Austen with The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged. Three nimble actors take on all of Austen’s beloved heroines, friends, and love interests—and her incisive social satire—in just 80 minutes. It is a truth universally acknowledged that an audience in possession of high spirits must be in want of a ticket to this big-hearted comedy that will delight Janeites and newcomers alike.
An evening with Jack the ripper
23rd - 24th May
7:30pm
Whitechapel. 1888. Between August and November a series of women are brutally murdered. The identity of the killer remains a mystery. Until now..?
It’s the greatest unsolved case in criminal history. One that continues to confuse and confound. Generating argument, debate and a host of different theories.
Who was he?
What was his motive?
And how did he get away with it?
Was he a doctor, a sailor, a soldier or some kind of religious zealot intent on ridding the streets of vice?
‘An Evening with Jack the Ripper’ will delve into the sordid realms of Victorian London in an attempt to finally unmask the man with the blackest of hearts who preyed upon the most vulnerable members of society.
Award winning producer and broadcaster Steve Morgan has captivated thousands of people on his celebrated ‘Ripper walks’ through the east-end of London, where he retraces the steps of the notorious killer through the streets he stalked.
Now he has adapted the story for the stage and invites you to spend an evening in the company of Jack the Ripper and live to tell the tale.