Underbelly Boulevard's First BELLY SCRATCH of The Year See's Four New Bold Works Take To The Stage

Underbelly Boulevard Soho hosted the first of their 2026 Belly Scratch nights on January 28th. Belly Scratch is a new theatre scratch platform giving makers a safe, supportive stage to test work-in-progress extracts in front of a live audience and gather real-time feedback.

Belly Scratch features four artists or companies sharing up to 20 minutes of new pieces at any stage of development, creating space for experimentation, connection and creative spark. 

Last week saw Jeanzia Guan, Izzy Jiang and Yunshu Jiang, Adna Ahmed, Jamie Finn, and Lucy Chamberlain (with director Selwin Hulme-Teague) take to the stage, presenting powerful extracts of new work.

HEIMER

A delicate and visually arresting puppetry piece, Heimer follows a man drifting into the fog of Alzheimer's, his memories carried back to the sea he has loved since childhood. Created by Jeanzia Guan, Izzy Jiang and Yunshu Jiang, the work blends poetic imagery with finely crafted puppetry to explore memory, farewell and the quiet pull of the past. Tender and reflective, it invited the audience to consider what remains when so much has been forgotten.

Small Plates

Adna Ahmed's sharp new play examined the slow, painful unraveling of a once-unbreakable friendship. When Aaliyah finds herself ghosted by her Best Friend Yasmine, her search for answers becomes all-consuming. Both funny and quietly devastating, Small Plates captured the ache of unfinished conversations and the fragile pride that can keep us apart.

Breast Side Story

Jamie Finn's darkly comic one-hour show unfolded in real time from a hospital room on the brink of top surgery. Moving between biting humour and raw honesty, he reflected on growing up in a body that never felt like home. Blending personal storytelling with warmth and wit, Breast Side Story explored masculinity, transformation and the strange stillness before life-changing moments.

Bear

Lucy Chamberlain's Bear, directed by Selwin Hulme-Teague, delivered a jolt of surreal dark comedy. After Phoebe's father jumps from the roof of an Aldi dressed as Paddington Bear, she is forced to confront both his depression and her own complicated grief. Mixing gig theatre with biting humour, the piece examined the chaos left behind when parents become painfully human.

The January Belly Scratch night set the tone for a year of new writing and risk-taking at Underbelly Boulevard Soho, spotlighting artists at pivotal stages of development and inviting audiences into the heart of the creative process.