Aine Flanagan

Freelance Theatre Producer

Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho

  • MagThatcher_drag_highres-7

    ‘A rollicking good laugh, no matter what side of the political spectrum you sit on’ ★★★★★ ­ Attitude

    ‘Glorious camp with political punch’ ★★★★ ­ Times.

    ‘Comic perfection’ ★★★★★ ­ So So Gay

    ‘Less than respectful’ ­ Daily Telegraph

    2014 and 2015 were exciting years for Margaret Thatcher, two sell­out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe and London’s Leicester Square Theatre, then touring the UK and traveling to the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and finishing its UK tour at the infamous Underbelly venue on London’s Southbank! Now in 2018, to mark the 30th anniversary of the passing of Section 28, Maggie is reviving her original critically acclaimed smash-hit show MARGARET THATCHER QUEEN OF SOHO and bringing it to VAULT Festival.

    On the eve of the vote on Section 28 Maggie gets lost in London’s decadent Soho and accidentally becomes a cabaret superstar, but will she change her mind about the homophobic bill before it’s too late…?

    Performer and co ­writer, Matt Tedford (‘the best Mrs Thatcher since Spitting Image’s Steve Nallon’ ­- Arthur Smith), is pulling on the tights once more to give audiences an insight into the difference an individual could have made with a sideswipe at homophobia and censorship. Co-written and directed by Olivier Award Winner, Jon Brittain, this delightful odyssey about gay rights, the 80’s and disco has received rave reviews across the board and won huge acclaim after playing to an audience of over 15,000.

    Since the Queen of Soho’s debut in 2013, the show has won both the Brighton Argus Angel for Artistic Excellence (Brighton Fringe) and Micheál Mac Liammóir Award for Best Male Performance (Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival) for Matt Tedford plus has been nominated for the Most Promising Writer (Off West End Awards).

    ‘Dame Edna has an unlikely rival’ Telegraph

    ‘The hype is beyond justified’ Entertainmentwise

    Other Maggie shows launched:  Margaret Thatcher Queen of Game Shows and Margaret Thatcher Queen of Game Shows.

  • Maggie Thatcher Queen of Soho_Image by Mihaela Bodlovic_32

    Writer/Director: Jon Brittain
    Jon Brittain is a Fringe First and Olivier Award-winning playwright, comedy writer and director. His work for theatre includes A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad)which won an Scotsman Fringe First and Rotterdam which won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. He co-wrote a dozen episodes of Cartoon Network’s Emmy award-winning The Amazing World of Gumball, He’s directed three shows each for comedians Tom Allen and John Kearns (including Kearns’s Fosters Award-winning shows Sight Gags for Perverts and Shtick). He’s currently under commission for LAMDA, the National Theatre, and Nuffield Southampton Theatres.

    Margaret Thatcher/Writer: Matt Tedford
    Matt is an actor, comedian and writer. He studied Drama at the University of EastAnglia where he performed in several plays including Alfie, Angels in America and a regional tour of Noel Coward’s Private Lives. He co-wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho for which he won the award for Best Male Performance at the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival and was nominated for an Off West End award for Most Promising Playwright. More recently he starred in and contributed material to online sketch show Hodge Podge. He is not a member of the Actors’ Studio.

    Hessel: Nico Lennon
    Nico trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. Previous Theatre work includes The Final Revelation of Sherlock Holmes (Pleasance Theatre), The London Cuckolds (Pleasance Theatre), Present: Tense (Nabokov / Watford Palace), Comedy of Errors (Sell-a-Door / Greenwich Playhouse), The Ghost Train (LOST Theatre), Romeo & Juliet (Iris Theatre) and No Longer I (Old Vic/Public Theater NYC). He is an experienced voiceover artist and has provided voices for a wide variety of high profile TV and radio commercials, computer games and ADR. He is delighted to be slipping back into Hessell’s hotpants.

    Tine: Ed Yelland
    Ed studied Drama at the University of East Anglia. Whilst there he performed in various productions including Sweeney Todd, The Pillow Man, Tales from the Vienna Woods and Dealer’s Choice. He has since appeared in the Steven Spielberg movie War Horse, toured with A News Thought’s production of On the Line and performed in Happy to Help by Michael Ross at the Park Theatre, I Think I Am A Good Dog by Jon Brittain at the New Diorama, and Hole by Duncan Gates at Vault Festival 2015. He has also appeared in every version of Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho to date.

    Lighting Designer: Alex Fernandes
    Alex is a London-based lighting designer and production manager. He was awarded the 2013 MichaelNorthern Bursary from the Association of Lighting Designers. Alex has worked all over the UK with numerous live art and theatre companies such as Made In China, Christopher Brett Bailey, Sleepwalk Collective and Fergus Evans. He is also the Associate Technical Director of the Forest Fringe in Edinburgh.

    Sound Designer – Edward Lewis
    Edward studied Music at Oxford University and subsequently trained as a composer and sound designer at the Bournemouth Media School. He works in theatre, film, television and radio. He has been nominated for several Off West End Awards and films he worked on won awards at the LA International Film Festival and Filmstock International Film Festival. Recent theatre includes: Gravity (BirminghamRep Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Almeida); On TheRocks, Amongst Friends, Ignorance and Darker Shores (Hampstead Theatre); The Speed Twins, Slowly, Hurts, Given and Received and Apple Pie (Riverside Studios); Once Upon A Time in Wigan and 65 Miles (Paines Plough / Hull Truck Theatre); The Shallow End (Southwark Playhouse); The Beloved (The Bush) and The Stronger, The Pariah, Boy With A Suitcase, Walking The Tightrope and Le Marriage and Meetings (The Arcola).

     

  • Tickets are now on sale for VAULT Festival from 14th – 25th Feb