Photographer: Alastair More
By Grace Hatchell
I nearly dropped my satchel when this one landed on the doormat, because it’s exactly the kind of theatre mischief I adore. Dundee Rep Theatre and Scottish Dance Theatre are rolling out the welcome mat once again for the Rep Stripped Festival, returning from 22–25 April, and it’s basically a playground for brand-new theatre, music, dance and spoken word.
Now, if you’ve never heard of Rep Stripped before, imagine a theatrical laboratory. Not the scary white-coat kind, mind you. More the sort where artists bring their boldest ideas, throw them on stage in front of a live audience, and see what sparks fly. No massive sets, no West End glitter cannons. Just raw creativity, brave storytelling and audiences getting to see something before the rest of the world does.
And honestly? That’s rather thrilling.
A festival for bold new voices
The festival, now in its third outing, is all about giving emerging artists a chance to test new work in an intimate, stripped-back setting. Think early drafts of shows that might one day tour the country or take over the Fringe.
This year’s programme dives into themes like feminism, family, power and social history, with a mix of theatre, music, dance and spoken word all packed into four busy days.
There’s also a little milestone in the mix. For the first time, dance joins the festival programme, helping mark Scottish Dance Theatre’s 40th anniversary year. So expect movement alongside monologues, rhythm alongside scripts, and a whole lot of creative energy buzzing around the Rep.
Highlights from the programme
Across two performance line-ups, audiences will get early glimpses of several new works.
One that caught my eye is SCAB by Ryan Hay, a new musical exploring Dundee’s infamous Timex strikes, when largely female workers led one of Britain’s most significant labour disputes in the late 20th century. A musical about industrial action? Now that sounds properly punchy.
Elsewhere, the programme includes work from Dundee-based duo Elfie Pickett Theatre, alongside Route, a hip-hop theatre piece by Kiki Oladapo that reimagines migration narratives through movement and rhythm to explore cultural identity, power and belonging.
Programme A offers a mix of comedy, monologue, dance theatre and musical storytelling, including Matt Anderson’s comedy-drama Fans, Katya Searle’s monologue A Peg or Two, Niamh O’Loughlin’s dance-theatre work Woman Above Water, Alex Medland’s darkly comic Juney McCloud and the Zombie Apocalypse, and Hayley Scott’s musical Modern Woman, inspired by pioneering Scottish doctor Elsie Inglis.
Programme B continues the variety, with pieces including Elfie Pickett Theatre’s spoken word work Mither/Daughter, Eve Nicol’s MASTER, Ryan Hay’s SCAB, hip-hop theatre work Route by Kiki Oladapo, and Milly Sweeney’s Manual/Automatic, an exploration of sisterhood, trauma and the autistic experience.
More than just performances
Rep Stripped isn’t just about sitting quietly in the audience and clapping politely at the end. The festival will also include public workshops and events, giving audiences the chance to peek behind the curtain and see how new work is developed.
In other words, you’re not just watching theatre. You’re watching it being born.
A launchpad for future hits
Since launching in 2019, Rep Stripped has quietly built a reputation as an important platform for new Scottish writing and performance.
Previous festival pieces have gone on to big things. No Love Songs was shortlisted for both the Mental Health Foundation Fringe Award and the Bright Spark Award for emerging Scottish talent, before touring the UK and transferring to Australia.
Meanwhile, A History of Paper scooped a Fringe First, the Music Theatre Review Best Musical Award and Best Director at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland. The production is set to return to the Rep stage later this year in a co-production with Pitlochry Festival Theatre, featuring Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson.
Rep Stripped Festival Creative Director Fraser Scott explained that in a theatre landscape where making work is increasingly difficult for freelancers, supporting artists to get their work on stage and in front of audiences has never been more important. The festival gives artists space to share ideas, develop projects and connect with the audiences who may support their work in the future.
And that, if you ask me, is exactly what theatre needs more of.
Because somewhere in this year’s line-up might be the next Fringe smash, the next touring musical, or the next playwright everyone’s talking about.
And Rep Stripped audiences get to say they saw it first.
For full details of each performance programme, please visit:
Rep Stripped Programme A | Dundee Rep
Rep Stripped Programme B | Dundee Rep
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