New Shows Set For 2025 And 2026 At Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre
The season also includes Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty and more!
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Aug. 04, 2025
Five new visiting shows have been revealed for upcoming Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre programming, including Alas Poor Fred/The disguises of Arlecchino, and more!
Alas Poor Fred/The Disguises of Arlecchino (3 October 2025):
The Lost and Found Collective, a new company founded by Scarborough theatre expert Paul Elsam, perform two rarely seen shows from the SJT's back catalogue. In Alas Poor Fred by James Saunders, something funny has happened to Fred. Not funny… odd. Quite odd. Will Ernest ever get to the bottom of it? As Ethel knits, the clock ticks… but what day is it? Does November really come before September? And where actually is Fido...? The Disguises of Arlecchinois by Clifford Williams. Perhaps you know Harlequin? Or maybe modern anti-hero Harley Quinn is more your style. Meet Arlecchino – the original anarchist! – a savvy Italian manservant with a talent for disguise and an instinct to Get Rich Quick (then promptly lose it all again).
Teechers (9 to 12 February 2026):
John Godber's classic play introduces us to three fifth form students who, through their end-of-term play, tell the hilarious story of an idealistic new teacher in his perilous first days inside a local comprehensive school. Former drama teacher John says: “At the heart of Teechers is the very real assertion that the arts, and especially drama, should form an essential part of the school curriculum. It also attempts to demonstrate the effect that exposure to the arts has on young people. Gail, Salty and Hobby have invented the play Teechers, which the audience is watching; during their drama lessons they have become skilled and analytical story tellers and observers, able to comment on society as they live through it.”
Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty (26 to 28 February 2026):
London, 1901. As the British Empire wages war in the name of a Queen whose health is failing, a series of mysterious events reveals a crack in the high corridors of power: a crack that threatens to destabilise monarchy, government and Empire. At its centre, controlling the flow of information and influence, a shadowy figure plans a final deadly move. Drawn into the game and unsure who to trust, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson find themselves confronting figures from their past in a desperate race against time, aware that the most powerful person in the world could be in the pocket of one of the most corrupt. Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty is from Blackeyed Theatre, and is written and directed by Nick Lane, whose previous collaborations with Blackeyed include two other Sherlock Holmes stories – The Sign of Four and The Valley of Fear – as well as adaptations of Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, and Frankenstein.
My Brother's a Genius (5 & 6 March 2026):
This Sheffield Theatres, Theatre Centre and National Youth Theatre of Great Britain production sees poetry, grime and dance unite in an explosive new play from Debris Stevenson about learning to fall, fail and find our own ways to fly. Daisy and Luke are twins navigating life in a high-rise estate, where ambition and self-doubt collide. Both twins have labels thrust upon them: Daisy the ‘idiot' and Luke the ‘genius'. But will their bond and shared dream of flying launch them up together or crash them apart?
Rob Rouse: Funny Bones (21 March 2026):
Since winning the prestigious Channel 4 So You Think You're Funny Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998, Rob Rouse has toured the world: fortunately, over a quarter of a century in ‘the biz' hasn't made him in the slightest bit sensible. Funny Bones is his brand-new stand-up show: a relentlessly funny and daft evening of comedy, from a one-man whirlwind who pulls the audience into his craftily spun tall tales with bucketfuls of manic energy, first-class stagecraft, eerily convincing characters, and a barrage of brilliant one-liners.
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