Stand Up Tragedy, Tragic Spring

Tragic Spring has sprung: This year Stand Up Tragedy brings you a Tragedy for all seasons

We’ve lined up four shows in London for 2015, plus we’ll be taking the tragedy back up to the Edinburgh Fringe in August. Sprinklings of tragic seasoning will spice up the performance calendar, with Tragic Winter, Tragic Spring, Tragic Summer and Tragic Autumn each exploring a different theme. Three acts of tragedy, one of which will be guest-curated by a favourite performer, culminate in a series of tasty shows that feed your appetite for the terrible and the sublime.

Tragic Spring will sprout on the 25th of April at the Hackney Attic. Spring is a time of change and transition: for new shoots to grow, old shoots must die! We’ll start the night with an act of Tragic Beginnings featuring BBC Poetry Slam Champion, Sophia Walker. Next we’ll have an act of Tragic Bodies, guest hosted by comedian, writer and journalist, Mathilda Gregory. And the night will end (as many nights do) with an act of Tragic Sex: stories about clitoris cults, phone sex and more, featuring award-winning playwright/performer, sex activist and educator, Cameryn Moore, who’s stopping off in London as part of her UK tour. At the show’s 10:30pm conclusion, everyone’s invited to join in a cathartic sing-a-long or show off their tragic dancing into the early hours of the morning.

Stand Up Tragedy aims to make audiences laugh until they cry and cry until they laugh. It’s a regular live show and podcast where people stand up and tell tragedy. We make you sad; we make you think; we make you smile. Expect music, comedy, fiction, spoken word, true stories and more, all playing up to the tragic form but not always taking it too seriously. The night ends, not with a whimper, not with a bang, but with a cathartic sing-a-long.

At Stand Up Tragedy, we combine established performers like Stewart Lee, Robin Ince, Josie Long, Grace Petrie, Sara Pacoe, Rob Auton and Andy Zaltzman with new and upcoming acts to create long-form evenings of tragic variety. Performers often write new material especially for our nights and relish the opportunity to put a tragic spin on what they do. The nights are recorded and put out as a podcast.

In the press:

“Laugh? I Nearly Died: The Rise of Stand-Up Tragedy” (Independent, July 2012)
“Stand-Up Tragedy” (London Word, January 2013)
One of the Guardian’s “Ten Great Storytelling Nights” (March 2014)

“Stand-up comedy with Sophocles and Justin Bieber during World Cup football” (John Fleming, June 2014)

"Takes in everything from music to comedy and is characterised by an emphasis on truth" -The Independent

"An entertaining bunch of melancholic oddballs -The London Word"