MTFestUK 2026 Reveals Full Line-Up

13-01-26

MTFestUK returns in early 2026 with a vibrant and ambitious programme of six original musicals, presented at The Other Palace Studio from 27 January to 15 February. Now firmly established as a vital platform for new musical theatre, the festival continues its mission to champion innovative writing, emerging voices and boundary-pushing ideas, inviting audiences into the creative process as shows take shape.

This year’s line-up brings together an exceptional group of performers including Bronté Barbé, Anjali Bhimani, Felicia Day, Omari Douglas and Jodie Steele, across a programme that spans parody, folklore, contemporary drama and digital-age storytelling. Across three weeks, audiences are invited to experience musicals at an exciting moment of evolution, where ideas are bold, risks are taken and stories are still being discovered.

Shining in Misery: A King-Size Parody opens the festival with gleeful irreverence, colliding the worlds of Stephen King into a snowbound musical nightmare. Set during a blizzard at a sinister hotel, familiar figures inspired by The Shining, Misery and beyond are drawn together as supernatural forces close in. With music by Andrew Abrams and a book and lyrics by Mark-Eugene Garcia and Colleen DuVall, the show delights in horror tropes while joyfully dismantling them through ensemble chaos, dark comedy and high-octane musical mayhem.

Legendary offers a striking contrast in scale and tone. Created and performed by Cheeyang Ng, this intimate solo musical draws on Chinese mythology, ritual and personal memory to explore identity, migration and inherited stories. Structured through circle singing and call-and-response, the piece invites the audience into the act of creation itself, blending concert, ceremony and theatre into a deeply personal exploration of belonging and self-authorship.

Modern relationship drama takes centre stage in Tristan, a contemporary musical that examines charm, deception and emotional projection. Written by Matt Jones with music by Kele Okereke, the story follows a man whose carefully constructed persona allows him to sell different romantic futures to two unsuspecting lovers. As those parallel lives collide, the musical interrogates why we are drawn to people who promise transformation, and what happens when fantasy fractures under scrutiny.

High school hierarchies and hidden power dynamics drive That Witch, a sharp, playful new musical set within a school drama club. When a new girl arrives in SunnyVille with abilities she barely understands, social tensions erupt and accusations quickly follow. Written by Billy Cullum and Robert Tregoning, the show uses humour and heightened theatricality to explore exclusion, fear of difference and the urgent desire to find belonging within a hostile environment.

Gaming culture and online identity are brought vividly to the stage in The Guild: The Musical, adapted from the cult web series by Felicia Day. With a book by Allison Frasca, music by Mark Schenfisch and lyrics by Sam Balzac, the musical follows a group of gamers forced into real-world connection when digital anonymity collapses. Featuring Felicia Day reprising her role as Codex, the show explores friendship, anxiety and miscommunication with infectious energy and a knowing sense of humour.

The festival concludes with GLIMMER, a dark, adrenaline-fuelled new musical set in Bristol in 2025. With book and lyrics by Frankie Bunce and music by Kat Kleve, the story centres on a young woman drawn into the orbit of a magnetic influencer whose message of empowerment conceals something far more dangerous. Driven by a pulsing pop score, GLIMMER interrogates digital radicalisation, validation culture and the high personal cost of being seen in an online world.

MTFestUK 2026 runs at The Other Palace Studio from Tuesday 27 January to Sunday 15 February 2026, offering audiences a rare opportunity to encounter the future of musical theatre up close — raw, ambitious and full of possibility.

Get tickets from the official site HERE