Baby Reindeer Read online

  BABY REINDEER

  by Richard Gadd

  Baby Reindeer premiered in Paines Plough’s ROUNDABOUT at Summerhall on 31 July 2019 as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, produced by Francesca Moody Productions in association with the Bush Theatre and SEARED Productions. It then transferred to the Bush Theatre, opening on 9 October 2019.

  Writer and Performer: Richard Gadd

  Director: Jon Brittain

  Producer: Francesca Moody

  Designer: Cecilia Carey

  Lighting Designer: Peter Small

  Sound Designer: Keegan Curran

  Video Designer: Ben Bull

  Video Development: Stoph Demetriou

  Dramaturg: Deidre O’Halloran

  Production Manager: Ed Borgnis

  Assistant Director: Nieta Irons

  Stage Manager: Caitlin O’Reilly

  Associate Producer: Harriet Bolwell

  PR: SM Publicity

  Special thanks to Thea Behbahni, Charlotte Bennett, Bush Theatre, Gail Carrodus, Julie Clare, Ed Eales-White, Pauline Goldsmith, James Grieve, iD Audio, Imogen Kinchin, Lynette Linton, Ariel Levy, Matthew Littleford, Giles Moody, Paines Plough, George Perrin, Michael Shelton, Sophia Stephanou, Alex Waldmann, Olivia Wybraniec, Jessica Campbell and the team at the Bush Theatre.

  BIOGRAPHIES

  Richard Gadd (Writer and Performer)

  Richard is a multi-award-winning writer, comedian and actor.

  His show Monkey See Monkey Do won the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Comedy Show at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it was also nominated for a Total Theatre Award for Innovation. Later that year, Richard won a Chortle Comedian’s Comedian Award and was nominated for an Off West End Theatre Award for Best Performer. The show was subsequently broadcast on Comedy Central and had several sell-out runs at London’s Soho Theatre, toured the UK and Europe, and had a run at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where it was nominated for the 2017 Barry Award.

  His previous shows Waiting for Gaddot, Breaking Gadd and Cheese & Crack Whores were all Edinburgh Fringe hits and went on to three-week runs or more at Soho Theatre. The former won an Amused Moose Comedy Award in 2015 as well as a Scottish Comedy Award for Best Solo Show in 2016. It was also nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award for Innovation.

  Richard is a successful actor, starring opposite Daniel Mays in the BAFTA-nominated BBC2 single drama Against the Law. Other key acting credits include lead roles in BBC3’s Clique, Sky Arts’ One Normal Night and E4’s Tripped. He is currently filming alongside Stephen Graham and Daniel Mays in Sky One’s new six-part comedy series Code 404.

  Richard is also a screenwriter who has written episodes of Netflix smash hit Sex Education, as well as Ultimate Worrier for Dave and The Last Leg for Channel 4 where he is also one of their correspondents. He has had several written projects broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland.

  Jon Brittain (Director)

  Jon is an Olivier Award-winning playwright, comedy writer and director.

  His critically acclaimed play Rotterdam earned him a nomination for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. The American production won the awards for Best Writing and Best Production at the LA Drama Critics Circle Awards.

  Other work includes the Scotsman Fringe First Award-winning A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad), book and lyrics for the critically acclaimed musical adaptation of David Walliams’ Billionaire Boy, the one-man comedy monologue What Would Spock Do? and a new play, Lads, which premiered at LAMDA last year.

  With Matt Tedford he co-created and directed the cult hit Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho, its sequel Margaret Thatcher Queen of Game Shows, its audio spin-off Margaret Thatcher Queen of Podcasts and the late-night smash Margaret Thatcher Queen of Club Nights.

  As a comedy director he worked on John Kearns’ Fosters Award-winning shows Sight Gags for Perverts and Shtick, and the follow-ups Don’t Bother, They’re Here and Double Take and Fade Away, Tom Allen’s shows Both Worlds, Indeed and the Barry Award-nominated Absolutely, Adam Larter’s Boogie Knights, James Wilson-Taylor’s Bat-Fan, Tom Rosenthal’s Manhood and Mat Ewins’ Actually Can I Have Eight Tickets Please?

  For TV he has worked as a staff writer on Cartoon Network’s The Amazing World of Gumball and on Netflix’s The Crown.

  Francesca Moody (Producer)

  Francesca has produced theatre in London, Edinburgh, on tour in the UK and internationally. She is the original producer of the multi-award-winning and Olivier-nominated Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, which she has presented in Edinburgh, at Soho Theatre, on UK tours, and in South Korea, Australia and most recently New York for DryWrite.

  Francesca is also the former Producer of British new writing theatre company Paines Plough, where she worked on plays by leading UK playwrights including Dennis Kelly, Duncan Macmillan and Kate Tempest.

  Other selected freelance credits include Mydidae by Jack Thorne (Soho Theatre/Trafalgar Studios), Spine by Clara Brennan (Underbelly/Soho Theatre/UK tour) and Gardening for the Unfulfilled and Alienated by Brad Birch (Pleasance Theatre).

  Francesca has received seven Fringe First Awards for her productions at the Edinburgh Festival and her company Francesca Moody Productions was officially launched in 2018.

  Cecilia Carey (Designer)

  Cecilia trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course and previously in Graphic Design at Camberwell College of Arts. Her commissioned work covers a broad spectrum, from site-specific performances and traditional theatre to live events, installations and unique community performances.

  Recent work includes: Jekyll & Hyde (Birmingham Rep); Tidy Up (Peut-Être/Great Ormond Street Hospital); Four Realms of Christmas (Westfield immersive for Disney); Consensual (Soho Theatre); Crimp 1, 2, 3 & 4 (Guildhall); ‘Vicky’s Place’ (re-design of an oncology ward at St Bartholomew’s Hospital); Vital Arts, ‘Beyond the Waterfall’ (Bompas & Parr, Westfield); Britten in Brooklyn (Wilton’s Music Hall); National Youth Theatre repertory season (Ambassadors Theatre); Fourplay (Theatre503); Brolly Project (Young Vic); The Late Henry Moss (Southwark Playhouse – nominated for Off West End Award for Best Set Designer); The Surplus (Young Vic); About Her (London Film Festival); Sense of an Ending (Theatre503); The Interventionists (Lyric Hammersmith); Pioneer (Curious Directive, Fringe First Award); The Red Helicopter (Almeida Theatre); Haining Dreaming (Haining Hall).

  Peter Small (Lighting Designer)

  Peter studied Lighting Design at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Since 2016 he has worked with Paines Plough on several projects, lighting their Growth Tour, Out of Love, Black Mountain and How To Be A Kid, all for ROUNDABOUT, their pop-up touring venue. He was nominated for two 2018 Off West End Best Lighting Awards for Black Mountain for Paines Plough at the Orange Tree Theatre and A Girl In School Uniform (Walks In To A Bar) at the New Diorama Theatre, for which he was also a finalist for the 2018 Theatre and Tech Award for Creative Innovation in Lighting.

  Peter has lit musical productions throughout the UK and abroad, including All Or Nothing, which toured nationally and had a run in London’s West End, and Tom & Jerry the Musical, staged in Egypt at the pop up EventBox Theatre, seating 3,000 people. He has lit dance productions for Step Live Festival for the Royal Academy of Dance at the Royal Festival Hall and Sadler’s Wells Theatre as well as numerous theatre productions.

  Other recent projects include lighting Orlando at the VAULT Festival; You Stupid Darkness! for Paines Plough at Theatre Royal Plymouth, as well as three shows for Paines Plough’s ROUNDABOUT tour 2018: How to Spot an Alien, Sticks and Stones and Island Town; Square Go for Paines Plough’s ROUNDABOUT at the Edinbur
gh Fringe; All or Nothing, the mod musical which transferred to the West End in 2018; Ad Libido at the VAULT Festival, Edinburgh Fringe and currently touring; Out of Love and How to Be a Kid, which toured alongside Black Mountain in the Paines Plough pop-up venue ROUNDABOUT in 2017 before transferring to the Orange Tree Theatre; Old Fools for To The Moon at Southwark Playhouse; Plastic for Poleroid Theatre at the Old Red Lion and Mercury Theatre, Colchester; and The Rape of Lucretia for Trinity Laban Opera.

  Keegan Curran (Sound Designer)

  Keegan has worked in theatre and live events for many years, from production managing open-air music festivals with The White Horse Project in East Lancashire to being an audio engineer and production manager on an array of events, festivals and shows. Since graduating from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School as a Sound Designer in 2014, he has worked as an in-house tech for Tobacco Factory Theatres, project managing for SFL Group internationally, and freelanced in the West End, around London and nationally. Previous sound designs include: Olivier Award-winning Rotterdam (Theatre503, Trafalgar Studios, Arts Theatre, 59E59 Theaters); Our Country’s Good (Tobacco Factory Theatres); The Internet Was Made for Adults (VAULT Festival); Soho Young Playwrights (Soho Theatre); Go Between (Young Vic); My World Has Exploded a Little Bit (Tristan Bates Theatre/Edinburgh Fringe); Infinity Pool (South West tour, Plymouth Fringe/Edinburgh Fringe); The Blues Brothers: Xmas Special (Arts Theatre, West End); Last Thursday (Prime Theatre); Trip the Light Fantastic (Theatre West, Bristol Old Vic Basement); Living Quarters (Tobacco Factory Theatres/SATTF); 140 Million Miles (Tobacco Factory Theatres/Traverse Theatre); Where We Are (The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath); Blue Stockings and The Winter’s Tale (Tobacco Factory Theatres); and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: A Musical (Redgrave Theatre, Bristol).

  Ben Bull (Video Designer)

  Ben Bull has been in theatre from a young age at the outset working at the Curve Theatre in Leicester on a broad variety of shows as well as freelancing in theatre and live events. Originally studying Lighting Design at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he has branched out into a career of theatre Video Design on top of that. Having established as a designer, he frequently works as a content assistant/animator for shows such as 9 to 5 The Musical at the Savoy Theatre and for P&O Headliner Shows on board a variety of ships. Previous credits include: Summer Fest (The Bunker Theatre); The Point of It (GBS Theatre); The Happy Prince (The Place); Woman and Scarecrow (GBS Theatre); The Pirates of Penzance (Wilton’s Music Hall); Eden (Hampstead Theatre); An Enemy of the People (Union Theatre); Philistines (Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre); Rotterdam (Gielgud Theatre); Fast (Edinburgh Fringe); Assassins the Musical (Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre); Henry IV (Gielgud Theatre).

  Ed Borgnis (Production Manager)

  Ed is a production manager working in the UK and worldwide. Recent projects include: Impossible world tour for Jamie Hendry Productions; Mozart vs. Machine for Mahogany; Cathy for Cardboard Citizens; Black and Gold, a Google Christmas Party at the Roundhouse; a series of Star Wars launch events for HP; The Grand Journey European tour for Bombay Sapphire. Ed has worked for the sound departments of the RSC, Royal Ballet, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tricycle Theatre and various concert venues. He also dabbles in video design and provides broadcast engineering support for the BBC. Ed has a postgraduate Engineering degree from University of Warwick, and grew up in London and Norfolk.

  Nieta Irons (Assistant Director)

  Nieta trained at Italia Conti and Kingston University, graduating with a First Class Honours from Kingston University. As a director while studying; reworks of A Taste of Honey (Rose Theatre), Antigone (Rose Theatre) and Journey to the Moon (Brighton Fringe). Nieta has also worked with Southwark Playhouse Young Company and Lewisham Youth Theatre as an assistant director.

  Caitlin O’Reilly (Stage Manager)

  Caitlin is a freelance events/productions professional and has been working as a stage manager for the past ten years. Credits include: Frogman (Curious Directive international tour); Keep on Walking Federico (Actors Touring Company UK tour and Barcelona); Paines Plough ROUNDABOUT tour 2016 and 2018 (UK tour); Suppliant Women (Actors Touring Company at Hong Kong Arts Festival); Romeo and Juliet (Orange Tree Theatre); Beauty and the Beast (Chichester Festival Theatre); Dry Room (Eldarin Yeong Studio at World Stage Design Festival, Taiwan); Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo (national tour); Goosebumps Alive by Tom Salamon (The Vaults); I Know All the Secrets in My World (Tiata Fahodzi national tour); The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow (Criterion Theatre); Ben Hur by Patrick Barlow (Tricycle Theatre).

  Harriet Bolwell (Associate Producer)

  Harriet is a theatre producer. She is currently Producer at Coney, for whom she has produced Companion: Moon (Natural History Museum), My Grandad the Spy (National Archives), 400 (Financial Times/Wellcome Trust) and The Accidental Revolutionist (Battersea Arts Centre). She was formerly Assistant Producer at new writing theatre company Paines Plough, where highlights included Pop Music by Anna Jordan, I Wanna Be Yours by Zia Ahmed and Come to Where I’m From. Her other freelancing credits include activist arts night Taking Back Control, and Extinguished Things by Molly Taylor and Vanity Bites Back by Helen Duff.

  Stoph Demetriou (Video Development)

  Stoph is a comedy writer, performer, filmmaker and animator from East London.

  Stoph studied for his MA in Screenwriting for Film and TV under ex-BBC boss Jonathan Powell, as well as poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, graduating with First Class Honours.

  Stoph has been behind a number of viral web hits, gaining millions of views in the process, as well as creating visual effects and motion graphics content for countless production companies around the world.

  Artistic Director Lynette Linton

  Executive Director Lauren Clancy

  Marketing and Sales Officer Vanessa Anaman

  Associate Director Daniel Bailey

  Technician Francis Botu

  Head of Marketing Beatrice Burrows

  Producer Jessica Campbell

  Technical Manager Amy Clarey

  Development Officer Florence Collenette

  Community Assistant Yasmin Hafesji

  Head of Finance Neil Harris

  Community Coordinator Izzy Hatton

  Literary Assistant Ifrah Ismail

  Events Manager Shaun Johnson

  Theatre Administrator and PA to the Executive Jessica Pentney

  Head of Development Sylvain Malburet

  Finance Assistant Karla McKenzie-Johnson

  Deputy Front of House Manager Tim McNiven

  Digital Marketing Officer Tasha Msanide

  Associate Dramaturg Deirdre O’Halloran

  Assistant Producer Oscar Owen

  Press Manager Martin Shippen

  Community Producer Holly Smith

  Development Assistant Eleanor Tindall

  General Manager Angela Wachner

  Front of House Manager Barbara Zemper

  Duty Managers:

  Rhonwen Cash, Ellie Fletcher, James Fletcher, Isabele Hernandez, and Ellen McGahey

  Box Office, Bar & Front of House Team:

  Kate Banks, Harry Butcher, Jack Byam-Shaw, Roxane Cabassut, Beth Church, Ilaria Ciardelli, Jack Cook, Erika Finca, Simon Fraser, Kelsey Gordon, Matias Hailu, Holly Hall, Olivia Hanrahan-Barnes, Rukyrah Harris-Haughton, Nieta Irons, Angel Isaac, Munaye Lichtenstein, Sara Malik, Emily Orme, Kwame Owusu, Taxiarchis Pantazis, Rafael Pascarella, Charlie Phillips, Alex Prescot, Molly Skelton, Melissa Stephen, Humaira Wadiwala and Rhea Withero-Taylor

  Board of Trustees

  Simon Johnson (Chair), Matthew Byam Shaw, Grace Chan, Mark Dakin, Simon Dowson-Collins, Nia Janis, Nike Jonah, Khafi Kareem, Lynette Linton, Isabella Macpherson, Kathryn Marten, Stephen Pidcock, Catherine Score

  Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, London W12 8LJ

  Box Office: 020 8743 5050 | Administration: 020 8743 3584

  Email: [email protected]


  bushtheatre.co.uk

  Alternative Theatre Company Ltd

  (The Bush Theatre) is a Registered Charity and a company limited by guarantee.

  Registered in England no. 1221968 Charity no. 270080

  With Special Thanks To . . .

  Maimuna Memon – for the joy, the happiness, and the saweet, saweet, krezzle TAMS.

  Julia, Geoff and Katie Gadd – for the love, support and never trying to make me what I’m not.

  Jon Brittain – for being the most talented director on God’s green earth.

  Francesca Moody – for dreaming big and being brilliant.

  Keegan Curran, Cecilia Carey, Peter Small, Ben Bull, Harriet Bolwell, Caitlin O’Reilly, Ed Borgnis, Nieta Irons and SM Publicity – for being the best team in the world.

  Stoph Demetriou – for being my right-hand man and having a sexy dad.

  Kitty Laing, Isaac Storm, Katya Balfour-Lynn, and Frances Greenfield, Maureen Vincent and Maria Dawson – for an incredible four years.

  Abby Singer, Emma Obank and Chris Quaile – for the years to come.

  James Grieve and all the staff at Paines Plough – for backing this project from the start.

  Christabel Homes – for booking us lots of rooms.

  Lynette Linton, Daniel Bailey, Jess Campbell, Beatrice Burrows and all the staff at the Bush Theatre (bar Pirate the Cat) – for taking a chance on a comedy guy.

  Deirdre O’Halloran – for being a man of the law.

  Charlotte Bennett – for all the help and support in the early years.

  Battersea Arts Centre – for all their generosity.

  Methuen Drama – for being insane enough to publish this.

  Mat Ewins – for being worse than me at comedy.

  Doug Riddler, Ruth Mottram, Craig Seymour and all the staff at the Hawley Arms – for putting up with this mess.

  Tom Letts, Ruth Kenley-Letts, Crispin Letts, Joe Letts, James Kirk, Michael Swatton, Tom Anderson, Ashley Byam, Djordje Jovanovic, Andy Hayward, David Mitchell, Stuart Jamieson, Martin Millers, Jonathan Cottrell, Stuart Mitchell, Matthew Winning, Sophie Malleson, Dawn Taylor, Phil Javens, Zoe Rocha, Pete Jackson, Owen Donavon, Joe Scantlebury, Tessa Ross, Peter Henderson, Seb Bance, Scott Montgomery, Dave Evans, Eamon Lloyd, Craig Moir, Daniella Isaacs and Sam Melvin – for being there.