Kathrine Payne

Kathrine Payne (they/them) is an award-winning playwright and performer from the North West, whose work spans theatre, clown, and interactive performance. They create bold, form-bending shows that explore identity, connection, and violence with dark humour and surrealism. 

Kathrine’s debut solo show plewds premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe to 5* reviews, won Summerhall’s Mary Dick Award 2024, and was shortlisted for Soho Theatre’s Tony Craze Award, Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence, and BingeFringe’s Queer Performance Award.

Kathrine is a founding member of Sweet Beef, a queer theatre company and Pleasance Associate Artists. Sweet Beef’s devised show Crying Shame was a London Borough of Culture Queer Arts Commission and won the Charlie Hartill Award in 2024. Their debut show I Hate It Here was shortlisted for the Les Enfants Terribles Award and has toured the UK twice. 

Kathrine trained as an actor at LAMDA, where they received the Lionel Bart Foundation Scholarship and the Stanley Picker Trust Scholarship. They’ve performed at the National Theatre, New Diorama Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse and Oxford Playhouse.

Kathrine works part-time at Clean Break, a theatre company supporting women with experience of the criminal justice system. Outside of theatreland , they perform drag in queer nightlife spaces including Riposte and Duckie—often involving a lot of mess and a lot of food.

Body Job

The number of ‘lonely deaths’ (those undiscovered for weeks or more) is on the rise in the UK. Body Job is a play about death and disconnection, from the perspective of the people who clean up the mess we leave behind.

Body Job follows two cleaners working for a private firm that clean up death sites: old age pensioners, violent crime scenes, they’ve seen it all – until this job. Bodies, shame and violence merge in a messy exploration of the dirty jobs that no one else wants to do.

Tatum Swithenbank

Tatum is a queer, disabled working-class actor, performer, and producer from the midlands based in London. They are influenced by folklore, the entanglement of myth and reality, and how the passing down of stories shapes us. Tatum has performed in theatre shows with CRIPtic Arts, Camden People’s Theatre, and the Roundhouse and has featured in a wide range of creative campaigns. Tatum has produced engaging narratives for BBC Radio 4, Audible, and BBC Sounds, including the award-winning series WITCH. Tatum’s ongoing project, Honey and the Hex, explores the origins, traditions, and intersections of folklore and where they lie today. 

As a DEI speaker and consultant, Tatum has collaborated with major names including Dazed, Kew Gardens, and Doc Martens. In 2020, they completed Bloomberg’s Creative Leadership Programme and became a Trustee at the Roundhouse. Named one of The Dots Rising Stars, Tatum is recognised for driving change and inspiring future leaders. They are passionate about community, culture, and accessibility. 

REALMS

REALMS is a genre-bending show that shifts through ritual, disability, magick, and belonging. It explores how folklore and the wheel of the year intersect with my existence as a working-class witch living with a progressive disease. This entanglement takes me on a journey through portals where I come across folklore creatures who help guide me on my quest. 

Grounded on pagan sabbats, the story unfolds different aspects of the cyclical nature of existence, the creatures and monsters that reside there, and the simple yet complicated nature of life and death. REALMS isn’t just a show but a spell with the audience, one that challenges people to sit with discomfort, to see the awe and magick in the everyday, and to recognise the portals we pass through constantly between body and spirit, memory and myth, reality and lore.

Sha Supangan

SO SHA is a neurodivergent, alcohol-sober Filipina artist working across songwriting, performance, sound design, and storytelling. Her multidisciplinary practice explores themes of displacement, recovery, and softness as survival, often blending emotional pop, improvisation, and surreal humour.

Born in the Philippines and raised in the energy of underground music spaces, she spent her early adulthood shaping dance floors across Asia and the UK — from promoting Tiësto at sixteen to co-owning a club while still in university. A former world champion figure skater and national cheerleader, her movement roots inform the dynamic, embodied quality of her performances today.

Now alcohol-free and committed to slower, more intentional creative practices, she reimagines live performance as a space for reflection, belonging, and co-creation.

A recipient of the UK Global Talent Visa, SO SHA has performed at venues like Southbank Centre and fabric London. She brings her lived experience of housing instability, sobriety, and cultural hybridity into every project — inviting audiences into sonic spaces where recovery and resistance can coexist.

Pruu the Pidge

I once saw a pigeon building her nest on anti-pigeon spikes. Not confused — committed. Balanced. Soft twigs pressed into metal teeth like it was nothing. I thought: that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.

This piece is music-led, but it isn’t a concert. It’s more like a quiet ritual. A sonic shelter. Something stitched from stories, rhythms, and the sharp things I never thought I’d survive.

I grew up inside basslines. Co-owned a club before I even knew how to stay. But these days I’m sober, unhoused, and done with pretending that performance has to be spectacle. This is about the in-between moments: the ones you don’t post about, the ones where your voice shakes and you sing anyway.

I don’t know the form yet. I’m not interested in tidy shapes. I’m interested in what happens when you make something tender out of what was meant to keep you out.

There will be music. There will be breath. There will be space for grief, for laughter, for listeners to come as they are. I’m building something strange and gentle and alive. Being at home within ourselves 🩷