Croydonites Festival to Return with Fringe Hits and Film Tours

Croydonites Festival of New Theatre will return for its 12th year in November. Binging together award-winning Edinburgh hits, theatre, comedy, new writing and film alongside homegrown talent from across the borough, the festival will continue its mission to nurture local artists while bringing some of the most exciting new performances from across the UK to Croydon audiences. The event will run Wednesday 4th November – Saturday 21st November 2026.

The festival will open with Hannah Maxwell's 2026 Fringe First award-winning Turn Your F*cking Phones Off, a timely exploration of human connection in the information age. Other theatre highlights include the critically acclaimed Man or Bear, inspired by the viral question to shine a light on female survival in an increasingly dangerous world. Fringe legend Victoria Melody will join the festival for the first time with her crucial show about food poverty, Trouble Struggle Bubble and Squeak while Edinburgh stalwart James Rowland returns with Fringe hit Team Viking.

Frauke Requardt and Vivienne Franzmann's offbeat Anatomy of Survival brings together 22 very different eyewitness accounts of a single everyday altercation, while Simone French's celebrated solo show A Suffocating Choking Feeling dives into the toxic world of fake influencers.

Among the festival's more unusual offerings is Bestie Award-winning Rosa Garland's gorgeously gross Primal Bog, which uses lesbian slime wrestling and live tattooing in a journey into the desires we hide away. Vincent Gambini's Close-Up offers audiences an altogether different experience: a unique one-on-one participatory magic show.

Comedy highlights include Ollie Horn's absurd cult hit The Most Toast and the return of comedy line-up show Dick's Picks, showcasing big-name comedians alongside cult characters including Sam Eley as Basil Crumbwick and Katie Norris.

Croydon itself takes centre stage in a major new film project premiering at this year's festival. Richard DeDomenici's Redux: Heads of State is an exclusive film commission from Croydonites which will see local participants recreate scenes from the high-octane action movie Heads of State, in the original Croydon locations used for filming. This will sit alongside a 'Crollywood' walking tour of famous Croydon film locations featured in Batman, The Da Vinci Code, Criminal, Black Mirror and Taylor Swift's Opalite.

The programme also includes showcases from the Croydonites' commissioning pathways, designed to give local creatives the opportunity to develop an idea from its earliest stages. CroydonBites offers small commissions for local artists to test new ideas; selected projects can then receive further development through CroydonBuilds, before progressing to CroydonBeyond, which supports full-length work ready to reach audiences beyond the borough.

Anna Arthur, founder and director of The Croydonites Festival comments, 'We are grateful that we can continue to nurture local artists and bring high-quality performance work from around the UK to Croydon. This is our 12th year and our loyal audiences continue to show up for something a little bit different! Our thanks to Croydon Council and Arts Council England for their support.'