Cast and Creatives Set For I'M NOT BEING FUNNY at the Bush Theatre

A new play about hope, endings, and how to survive if a knock-knock joke hits you in the gut opens at the Bush Theatre on 7 May, running until 6 June (Press night 12 May).   I'm Not Being Funny is written by Piers Black (Catching Comets, Pleasance & UK tour), directed by Traverse Theatre Associate Artist Bryony Shanahan (Bloody Elle, West End), and produced in association with Prentice Productions (How I Learned To Swim, Brixton House). The cast is Tia Bannon and Jerome Yates.

She's signed them both up. Her and her husband. For stand-up comedy. 

So tonight, they're locking themselves in their living room until they've got a ‘tight five', delving through their past for material. But some jokes hurt, and laughter isn't always the best medicine.

With the clock ticking and nothing but a baby monitor for an audience, they wrestle with the spotlight as questions about their future are forced to the surface. 

Biographies

Piers Black is a writer and director, and Artistic Director of award-winning Ransack Theatre. His play My Dad Hunts Bears was a finalist for the Papatango Prize and developed on attachment at the National Theatre Studio. His show Catching Comets was nominated for a Fringe First, won an OffComm Award, and toured nationally following its Edinburgh Fringe premiere. He won the BBC Alfred Bradley Bursary Award for his radio play Human Resources, which was later broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as Drama of the Week. Other work has been staged at HighTide, the Royal Exchange, HOME, and the Bolton Octagon. He has been invited to the Soho Theatre Writers' Lab and BBC Northern Voices, shortlisted for the Kudos Writers' Award, and named a finalist in the Shore Script Short Film competition. As a director, Piers has worked at the National Theatre, Almeida, Royal Exchange, Lyric Hammersmith, HOME, The Yard, and Theatre503. He is currently developing new work with the National Theatre Studio and The Lowry and will direct at Soho Theatre later this year.

Bryony Shanahan is a freelance theatre director. Between 2019 and 2023, she was Joint Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. Her directing credits for the Royal Exchange include: Bloody Elle, No Pay? No Way! Beginning, Let The Right One In, Nora: A Doll's House, Wuthering Heights, Queens of the Coal Age, Weald, and Nothing. Bloody Elle transferred to the Traverse Theatre, Soho Theatre, and the West End (Lyric). Other directing credits: Keli (National Theatre of Scotland); Trade (Young Vic); Standing in the Shadow of Giants, Enough (Traverse); Chicken Soup (Sheffield); Operation Crucible (59E59 NYC, Sheffield Crucible, UK Tour); Bitch Boxer (UK Tour).

Tia Bannon plays Wendy.  Her stage appearances include Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner (Woolly Mammoth / Public Theatre / Royal Court Theatre), Orestia / Hamlet (Park Armory and Almeida Theatre), Faith, Hope and Charity workshop (National Theatre Studio), Losing Venice (Orange Tree Theatre), Dead Don't Floss (National Theatre), Abigail (The Bunker Theatre), The Winter's Tale and Pericles (The Globe), Camelot: The Shining City (Sheffield Theatres), Obamaology, Unprotected, Dogs Barking, Women of Twilight, and Double Dealer (RADA). On television, Tia has appeared in Acrimonious (Memory Pictures), Shakespeare and Hathaway (BBC), Midsomer Murders (ITV), This Is A Relationship (CFG/Come Home Diversified), and Shakespeare Uncovered (BBC/PBS). On radio Tia has appeared in Silence and Her Roomate (Rural Media Company), The Midnight Sky (Netflix), Acrimonious (SOS Films), Dead End (NFTS), Drifters (Bad Owl Films), and the short films Lynch (OxyGene Films), Balls, Nightless (BFI/NFTS), Oxygen & Terror (Royal College of Art) and Marcus (Creative Discorder).  On the radio, Tia has appeared in Pygmalion (Amazon/Audible), Camberwell Green (BBC Radio 4 / Pier Productions), and Martians and Relativity 2 (BBC). 

Jerome Yates plays Peter. His theatre appearances include  Driftwood (Pentabus/ThickSkin); Pinocchio (Watermill Theatre); Our Teacher's A Troll, Peter Pen and the Battle for Neverland (Ruined Theatre); Surfacing (Asylum Arts); The Leftovers, Sophocles' Oedipus/Silent Practice, We Anchor in Hope, Against, Julius Caesar, Jumpers for Goalposts, Much Ado About Nothing, Three Sisters, and The Glass Menagerie (LAMDA).  His television and film appearances include Project Codename (Netflix) and The Children (Black House Pictures).

The Bush Theatre's Studio space continues to be a laboratory for the very best in new writing, new stories, new forms, and new experiences, premiering a host of world-class plays about things that matter from some of the best up-and-coming artists.  Productions first produced in the Studio have gone on to the Bush's main Holloway Theatre space, the West End, Off-Broadway, and 10 Nights, a co-production with Graeae and Tamasha, was nominated for an Olivier Award.