Pests are partnering with Helen Ainsworth and John Mowat to bring you Janet. Emmerdale meets Monty Python in this deliciously surreal show which follows the life of Janet from conception to tragic-comic end. Janet is 1.5kg of uncooked bread dough who refuses to go in the oven.

"Make sure you see this one" FringeGuru
"Janet is truly bizarre" Northwest End

Directed by John Mowat
Performed by Helen Ainsworth
Please note this event is for over 16's.

Friday 6th December 2019 at 7.30 pm
at St Luke's Church St Luke's Rd,
Bournemouth BH3 7LR
Tickets available for £3 or £5, free tea, coffee, and biscuits available with your ticket.

Q. What happens when you move a 12-year-old from Basingstoke to Zambia?
A. She swims.

Katrina blends poetry, physical theatre, and a little early 00s R&B in a touching and funny cross-cultural coming-of-age memoir.

It’s a story about learning to fit into your skin, no matter what place you’re in. And it’ll teach you how to swim.

Individual Medley comes to Bournemouth following two award-nominated runs at Brighton Fringe, a successful Edinburgh Fringe run, and performances around the UK.

“Perfect poetic style” (The F-Word) 

“Lovely story, great balance of poetry and telling, but most of all her physical choreography is stunning. The whole piece is half dance, half body-as-cursive-script” (Kirsten, Apples & Snakes)

“Captivating, insightful, heart-wrenching & heart-warming” (Audience member) 

Friday 15th November, St Lukes Church, Winton

Tickets available for £3 or £5, free tea, coffee, and biscuits available with your ticket. 

On August 9th, Pests are teaming up with award-winning punk theatre company 2headedpigeon to bring you the claustrophobic underdog adventure set in a dystopian future Square Peg. “More than you dare hope to find at the fringe”, Threeweeks. “As a comment on soulless consumerism, it’s hard to imagine a more powerful artistic statement”, Sunday Business Post.

2headedpigeon are clown-punk theatremakers. 2headedpigeon’s work is quirky, visceral and irreverent. It is also often quite silly. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we believe theatre can change the world. The company is fronted by lead troublemaker Clare Shucksmith. Various other artists join us for the different projects, depending on the needs of the project and the company.

August 9th with two performances, first at 7pm and second at 8:30pm. The run time is 30 minutes.

St Lukes Church

Tickets £3 and £5

The Paper Smokers are joining Pests in Bournemouth on their tour with Diary of an Expat.

Diary of an Expat is a semi autobiographic political comedy about an immigrant’s journey towards full Britishness while a funny little thing called Brexit threatens the European dream of life abroad.

They will be coming to Bournemouth on Friday June 14th, performing at St Michaels Church at 7:30pm.

Paper Smokers is a collective of storytellers founded by Cecilia Gragnani after she moved to London from Italy to complete her theatre training. 

The name comes from a poem written by the Italian writer Cesare Pavese:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/cesare-pavese

Our work focuses on new writing and comedy and it includes theatre, music, visual arts and film. We strongly believe in the value of international collaboration and the coming together of artists from different backgrounds as precious tools to interpret today’s world.

We focus on projects that are multilingual, transcultural and exist across borders.

Pests are bringing the brilliant Susan Kempster to Bournemouth to perform Eye. Eye is a look at self through the lens of a camera, not a mirror. It is a close-up, a detail, an intimate diving into private worlds we sometimes wish no one could see. Using an old video camera and a projector, we are invited to observe the micro dance of facial expressions. A solo show with an invited guest, and an invitation to the audience to participate in a sequence of “face dances”, Eye sits on the edge between theatre, dance, live film and performance.

Susan Kempster is a dance artist and performance maker, originally from Australia, living more than two decades in Spain, and now based in London. She is an award-winning choreographer, who balances her work between teaching, creating and performing. Her solo performances Eye, and the earlier My Own Private Movie, have been born out of a desire for direct and personal connection with the audience.

Susan will be performing Eye on April 12th, doors open at 7PM with the show starting at 7:30PM. Tickets are £5 full price and £3 concession and can be bought by following the link below.