19^th – 29^th August.

Date Night: The travelling, pop-up comedy performance for your doorstep, driveway or garden

Created by Tobacco Factory Theatres’ Artistic Director Mike Tweddle and two of Bristol’s top comic theatre performers Stewart Wright and Lucy Tuck, street theatre meets a pop-up restaurant in Date Night.

It’s Stewart and Lucy’s first date night in over a year, and they are desperate for a change of scene. So, they couldn’t be more excited to be visiting a brand-new pop-up restaurant – right outside your home! Whilst they enjoy the al fresco dining experience and a playfully personalised specials board, you’ll be taken on a whistle-stop journey through the places, the people, and pastimes you haven’t enjoyed enough of lately.

From Thursday 19 to Sunday 29 August the experience will visit addresses in South Bristol.

Date Night is brought to you by the team behind doorstep Christmas show BS3 Santa, which visited more than 200 doorsteps last December and was featured in the New York Times. Gather your family, friends, or neighbours together for a deliciously charming and joyful half hour of up-close performance.

Date Night is performed by Bristol theatre legends Lucy Tuck (Cinderella: A Fairytale, 101 Dalmatians, The Borrowers) and Stewart Wright (Swallows and Amazons, Doc Martin, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Small Axe) and directed by Tobacco Factory Theatres’ Artistic Director Mike Tweddle (A View from the Bridge, Beautiful Thing).

Discussing the factors that led to the creation of the Date Night experience, Stewart Wright said, “We really enjoyed creating a doorstep Christmas show last year. It was an emotional reaction to the lockdown situation and how live performance was having the oxygen of its audience cut off. The communities that we entertained were thrilled that we came to them, enabling a coming together with neighbours in the street. It’s amazing what can be organised through street WhatsApp groups- most of which had been created as a response to the pandemic.

BS3 Santa was an incredible experience- it even got written about in the New York Times. As the dust on it settled, I thought that a longer piece for an adult audience would be a great next step. Tobacco Factory Theatres were supportive of the idea and raised some funding to enable me to reunite with the fantastic Lucy Tuck and create a new show under the direction of Mike Tweddle.

We’re excited about this inventive new 30-minute show, created as a travelling pop-up performance. We hope to be at the cutting edge of pandemic-proof performance with our flexible show that can work on a street, driveway, or theatre stage equally well.

Date Night itself is built on the premise that Lucy and I, in an attempt to freshen up our stale relationship, are trying out a new pop-up restaurant on your doorstep. The spine of the show centres around a member of the audience who provides menu options- a starter inspired by a childhood memory, for example. We recreate some of these moments, fly abroad for our main course, improvise sections, and there are physical routines to music. It’s a unique, funny, and personal show for each individual audience. It also highlights the obstacles that the arts are still facing as we continue to manoeuvre our way through the pandemic.”