June marks the start of Pride Month in the UK and this year’s Pride Season at Hull Truck Theatre will celebrate the work of LGBTQ+ people with a variety of new writing, comedy, drag, puppetry, musical numbers and burlesque.
Fans of the play Riot Act created and performed by Alexis Gregory will be pleased to hear that he is back in Hull and opening the Pride season with a new Queer Thriller, Smoke (Thursday 4 June). Don’t miss the chance to explore the key themes of the play with a post-show panel discussion hosted by LGBTQ+ organisation, You Are Loved.
Joining the panel conversation will be:
Dr Amy Gledhill (she/her) Psychiatrist, Humber Teaching NHS Foundation. Amelia (Amy) is a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist as well as an Honorary Lecturer for Hull York Medical School. Outside of her Liaison role, she is a member of Quaker Voices on Mental Health, and of GLADD, the association of LGBTQ+ Doctors and Dentists. Her views are her own.
Campbell X (he/him) Writer & Director. Campbell is an award-winning film/tv/theatre writer and director, who’s work centres messy queer lives and black diasporic ancestral histories/herstories/their stories. He directed the play SMOKE.
Ted Burr (he/him) Business Support Coordinator & Co-Chair of PROUD, The Forward Trust. Ted works within addiction recovery services, helping build pathways into residential rehab and long-term recovery support. Passionate about reducing barriers to treatment and supporting people to access sustainable recovery journeys.
Danni (she/her) Treasurer of Phoenix TCH. Danni came out as gender fluid in 2023 and today identifies as non-binary trans femme. She is a trustee of Phoenix Trans Community Hull which provide community and peer support for trans and non-binary people in Hull and the surrounding area.
Campbell X, Director on Smoke, said: “I jumped at the opportunity to work with Alexis as his theatre work is powerful, creative and a historical document about LGBTQ lives. SMOKE demands we lift the lid with dark humour and pathos to go on an emotional journey.”
“An important play…Gregory delivers a compelling attention-grabbing performance… Campbell X’s direction feels deliberately restrained.” – Beyond the Curtain
Bringing two of the funniest and most original pieces of entertainment to Hull, Awkward Productions will present two delightfully hilarious theatrical shows. New queer rom com, The Fit Prince (Thursday 11 June) was the critic’s choice from the New York Times and Vogue Magazine at Edinburgh Fringe, where the puppetry alone merits a visit to this all-round incredible show. Expect original music, hilarious high campery, and a turbo-charged plot to a joyous queer love story.
“Where their Gwyneth and Diana shows were already pretty exceptional, they have reached a whole new level with the Fit Prince, making me pause to consider a sixth star.” – All That Dazzles
“Mad, heartfelt and hilarious, the show brings together the best elements of every holiday film you’ve ever seen.” – GQ
If you originally missed Diana: The Untold And Untrue Story, you can now see the show on (Friday 12 – Saturday 13 June), combining drag, multimedia, audience interaction, puppetry and a lot of queer joy in this unique celebration of the people’s princess. Winner of multiple awards and sold-out venues across the UK, and across the world.
Get ready for a celebration of Ar Di in this hilarious as it is tasteless, masterclass of parody. Setting out on a deranged journey through Diana’s life, from the moment of her conception to current day. Only in this version of reality, nothing is quite as it seems. Conspiracy theories rage at the fore, and fortunes are retold in a side-splittingly funny and fantastical version of events.
“A glorious chaotic hour of drag and chaotic audience participation, in this hilarious, heartfelt tribute to the People’s Princess with a camp twist.” I Love Manchester
If Operation Mincemeat and SIX had a child, this would be it. Remember, Remember (Thursday 18 June) is an incredibly misinformed, inaccurate retelling of one of Britain’s most infamous tales of treason. Expect hilarious songs, forbidden love and explosive action in this ridiculous camp new musical based on the Gunpowder Plot.
Kluane Saunders, Creative of WIT? Theatre Company, said: “We wanted something any audience could immediately recognise and connect with. We considered classic texts, and other important historical events. We landed on the gunpowder plot because we found it funny that we all knew Guy Fawkes Night happened once a year, but when we questioned one another about the details, our actual knowledge of the events was pretty vague. We assume that most audiences would share our general haziness and that gives us a lot of room to play around with her story.”
Dyke Systems (Saturday 20 June) will take audiences into the glittery, unhinged world of multi-level marketing mayhem with a show that will take down heteronormativity and corporate feminism. Directed with an eye for comic detail by co-writer Lucy Allan, it’s a broad, 1990s-set pastiche of unfulfilled dreams, unspoken desire and pyramid selling.
“Kobler and Wilson-Guy are an indefatigable duo, delivering a tightly written satire with whip-smart precision.” The Stage 5*****
Do you have your entertainment planned for the evening of Hull Pride? We have you totally covered, which is more than we can say for Swamplesque, (Saturday 25 July), the gloriously absurd Shrek-themed burlesque show. A riotous collision of drag, striptease, and shameless nostalgia, that promises an hour unapologetic fun that celebrates both DreamWorks’ iconic ogre and the liberating spirit of burlesque.
Meet a parade of beloved characters reimagined through sequins, sass, and skin. Watch Shrek himself, shred his layers, Donkey shimmer in velour, Gingy the Gingerbread Man vogue to the Pussycat Dolls’ Buttons, and the Man in the Mirror (complete with a jaw-dropping aerial sequence) perform a pure spectacle.
“The costumes alone are a triumph—mirrored panels, lush velvets, and green sequins galore—each piece a loving homage to the source material before being (inevitably) shed with theatrical flair” – Theatre & Tonic
Swamplesque promises to leave you enchanted, entertained and begging for more. Celebrate Pride with this unforgettable evening that proves fairy tales are for everyone!
Book two or more shows from the Pride Season selection and save 25% on tickets.
HIC (Hull Independent Cinema) are also celebrating Pride with an Internationally Queer film screening (Wednesday 17 June), where YOU, the audience were asked to decide what film is programmed. HIC have now announced the film chosen which is Funeral Parade of Roses.
Widely considered a landmark of queer cinema and the Japanese New Wave, Funeral Parade of Roses was the first film to acknowledge the existence of Japan’s queer subculture. In their book Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema, authors Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn describe it as a revolutionary moment, an “incredibly exciting, refreshing, unforgettable film that is a record of its time and place, and that shows the radical potential of the trans film image.
For more information about Hull Truck Theatre and to buy tickets for any of the shows taking place in June, please visit: www.hulltruck.co.uk