BedFest 2025

Jan 27 2025 | By | Reply More

BedFest rides again!

BedFest, the Bedlam’s annual festival of short plays and theatre-orientated workshops returns this week, running from Wednesday 29 Jan to Sat 1 Feb, with experimentation, straight productions and seven new scripts.

The EUTC has been running a spring theatre festival at the student-run venue since the early 90s, primarily as a reaction to the disappearance of the Scottish Student Drama Festival in 1993. ‘Bedfest’ in its current iteration started in 2012, and has been running every year since.

BedFest 2025 Logo.

BedFest’s marketing manager Kai Smolin told Æ: “BedFest exists to highlight fresh student writing and smaller experimental ideas that would be difficult to stage in full productions, and is a platform to test out early fringe ideas.

“Bedfest productions run on a minimal budget of less than £50, but still have historically found success in making the move to Fringe. On top of shows, Bedfest offers practical theatre workshops, and some fun socials to bring the community together.

The goal of this year’s BedFest is to stage as many productions as possible, according to festival programmer Em Leites McPherson. She and co-programmer Alessandro Varacalli have reached out across Scotland and the wider UK for added input.

This includes People You Know Productions from St Andrews who first came in 2022 when BedFest lacked access to the Bedlam due to Covid restrictions, and who have been invited back ever since. This year with Table for Two: A Series of Duologues.

all original writing

McPherson told Æ: “This year’s programme features all original writing, with a mix of debut scriptwriters and students in our university’s playwriting masters program. As well as standard plays and workshops, we deliberately sought out ideas which challenged the standard show experience, and brought something new to the festival.

“We’ve called these ‘immersive experiences’. Time Bends is staged in our theatre’s bar, Cardstock features a pre-show set exploration experience, and on Saturday we have our Audience Interactive Immersive Werewolf, as well as Mario Kart: IMMERSIVE, which features live music adapted to the game.

“We are really excited for these weird events – and this year’s festival as a whole.”

Listing

Click on the name of the show or the Book Here link, to go to its ticketing site. All performances take place in the Bedlam theatre which can be very cold at the best of times, let alone the depths of winter, so wrap up warm!

Venison
By: Huw Turnbull
Wed 29 Jan: 7.30pm.
Dan, Bill and Max have arrived at the world’s most awkward dinner party. They’re alone with Jane’s weird boyfriend Jerry. She’s nowhere to be seen. He’s already cooked. Venison is on the menu. Surely staying for one bite won’t hurt… Book here.

Cardstock
By Qianyue Ang
Thurs 30 Jan: 6.30pm
This is a story of rage and resilience, defiance and rebirth. A trial over online rumours intertwines the fates of two different women. When a condemned erotica writer meets a sexual assault survivor, how will they reclaim themselves from pain? Book here.

Time Bends
By William Oliveira
Fri 31 Jan: 5pm.
David, a married and self-loathing corporate lawyer, attempts to relive a chance encounter from twenty years ago. Book here.

Fools and Knaves
By Polly Dunn
Fri 31 Jan: 7pm.
George Villiers, lover to King James I is at a dead end. Desperate to prove himself he convinces Prince Charles to come with him to Spain to woo the Infanta…only, Charles hates him, and the Spanish don’t know they’re coming. Book here.

The Ts and Cs
By Freya McCall and Maddy Hatch
Sat 1 Feb: 12noon
5 students. Points of commonality- undisclosed. One social experiment with questionable legitimacy. A whole bunch of dick jokes. Will the eclectic bunch let down their walls and learn to co-exist? Or will the pressure of the less-than-legitimate experiment get too much for them? Good thing they read the terms and conditions…didn’t they? Book here.

Audience Interactive: Immersive Werewolf
By Carys Hrebenar
Sat 1: 5pm.
A massive immersive game of werewolves (Blood on the Clocktower or Mafia), a game of deceit and lies and trying to survive in a town of wolves thirsty for blood. The game has been tailored to have new qualities to it to make play enjoyable. Come save the town, or die trying. Book here.

Shoebox’d
By Lola Rose Wood
Sat 1 Feb: 7pm
A debut one-act-play about cohabiting and codependency by Lola Rose Wood; this world exists for anyone who yearns to take up space and know how to hold it. Book here.

Table for Two: A Series of Duologues
People You Know Productions
Sat 1 Feb: 8.30pm
Sexually frustrated waiters. Milan Kundera. Dentistry. Gravel. Table for Two presents you with a menu of comedic conversations at your local bar from the thorny to the horny. Experience thirst-quenching duologues featuring characters who are a load of mixed nuts. Book here.

Mario Kart: IMMERSIVE
Zara Bathurst
Sat 1 Feb: 10.30pm.
For one night and one night only, get thrown back into your childhood with the iconic game Mario Kart – but this time accompanied by a live band! We are reviving a WII from 2006 for this exclusive opportunity. Book here.

BedFest 2025 also includes several workshops over its four day. See the Bedlam page here for details.

ENDS

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