Photos: LOCAL Being Presented By Finborough Theatre

Acclaimed solo playwright and performer Liz Richardson brings her new play Local to London, opening at the Finborough Theatre for a strictly limited three week run on Tuesday, 14 July 2026 (Press Nights: Thursday, 16 July 2026 and Friday, 17 July 2026 at 7.30pm). Check out the photos!

A show exploring what it means to be local – whoever you are and wherever you’re from. Solo storyteller Liz revisits her childhood memories and home in rural Cumbria in an attempt to understand whether she still belongs there, or ever did. In this multi-generational piece, Liz takes the audience on a journey through the landscape and environment of her home, spanning the decades from the early 1990s to today, as she reconnects with voices from the past and her young growing family now, and confronts head-on her devastating fear of loss…

In a solo performance that takes us from laughter to tears and back again,Local asks what it means to be ‘local’ to a place, whether you were born there or not – and, crucially, how do we each find our own sense of belonging?

Tickets can be purchased at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk. 

Local is Playwright and Performer Liz Richardson’s third solo play to be published, tour and gain critical acclaim. Her previous play SWIM enjoyed a sell-out two year national tour including seasons at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, and the Edinburgh Fringe at the Pleasance Courtyard, where it won the Pleasance Regional Theatre Partnership Award and was named among the ‘Best Shows to Watch at the Fringe’ by i News and WhatsOnStage, and was a Festival Pick in The Times . Like Local, SWIM and her first play Gutted are published and available from Bloomsbury/Methuen. All of her solo shows collaborate with creatives from different mediums and practices with a focus on projects which create and tell stories about and around community. Community partnerships have included the National Trust and the Outdoor Swimming Society, and co-productions with HOME Manchester, Theatre By The Lake, Keswick, and Rosehill Theatre, Whitehaven. Liz originally trained as an actor at East 15, and was an active member of actor-led, improvisational theatre company The Factory, creating and performing widely, including at Shakespeare’s Globe, Soho Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, Southwark Playhouse, and for BBC Radio. As a stand -up comedian, she was a semi-finalist in Soho Theatre’s Comedy Competition from which she was invited to appear with Amused Moose (BBC) and at the Hackney Empire alongside Jenny Eclair.

Director Amy Hailwood is a theatre director and socially engaged facilitator, based in Manchester, and with a strong commitment to the North -West. Direction includes Joy Unspeakable (Regional Tour for Ordinary Glory), Re: Discover Festival (Winner of Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Impact, Streetwise Opera and Bridgewater Hall, Manchester), Today These Streets Are Ours (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Remote by Stef Smith (Octagon Theatre Bolton and The Lowry, Salford, for NT Connections), XYV (Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester), After Birth (Co:LAB at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Memories of Partition (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Faraway, So Close (Old Fire Station, Oxford). Assistant Direction includes assisting Roy Alexander Weise on Robota (Headlong), and Jude Christian on Parliament Square(Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, and Bush Theatre). She is currently attached to Headlong Theatre as an Origins 6.0 director, and is also Artistic Director of award -winning theatre-for-social-change company Ordinary Glory.