Cast and Creative Team Set For GUSH at Traverse Theatre

This funny and frank exploration of the barriers that prevent women from owning their desires will be led by Jessica Hardwick. Jessica has been seen across Scottish stages as well as on screen in the BAFTA Scotland award-winning programme Float (BBC/Canal+) which won the Best Television Scripted award in 2024. 

The new Traverse commission will be directed by Becky Hope-Palmer who has worked with the Traverse previously on Letters To Our Future Government in 2024. The design team is made up of Becky Minto (Designer), Renny Robertson (Lighting Designer) and Niroshini Thambar (Sound Designer). The team is completed by Company Stage Manager, Lee Davis. 

GUSH, has been commissioned by the Traverse to run in Traverse 2, from Fri 10 to Sat 25 April 2026. Exploring self-identity, sexuality and the tension between compromise and sacrifice, GUSH considers what it means to discover what we want and dare to ask for it.

More from the Traverse: 

Joyce McMillan, theatre critic at the Scotsman, will chair a special post-show Q&A as part of the world-premiere of Head. Heart. Hand. a new play by Stef Smith that brings Queen Margaret University's 150-year story to life. 

The Traverse has been home to many of Stef Smith's formative works including Enough (Traverse Theatre Company production, 2019), Girl In The Machine (Traverse Theatre Company production, 2017) and Swallow (Traverse Theatre Company production, 2015). 

First premiered at the Traverse Theatre in August 2013, David Greig's The Events has become one of the defining Scottish works of the last decade.  

This new production, returning home to the Traverse later this month, is made distinctive by having a local choir at the heart of this professional production. With the narrative of the play being shaped by the community voices at the centre of it, the choral structure powers the intimacy, moral complexity and its refusal to offer easy answers. 

TOMORROW comes to the Traverse in April, accompanied by Head Talks — a post-show panel discussion hosted by author and mental health campaigner Aaron Gillies — bringing audiences directly into the conversation that this urgent new work explores. 

Created in partnership with men engaging with MIND Herefordshire, TOMORROW is a visceral and deeply human exploration of masculinity, vulnerability and emotional survival in the modern world.  

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