It’s less than a month until every local’s favourite theatre festival returns. Croydonites runs from Wednesday 4 to Saturday 21 November, taking over a variety of venues across Croydon, from The Front Room and the Clocktower Café to Stanley Arts and David Lean Cinema.

Croydonites has been part of our cultural calendar since 2015, and its programme seems to get bigger and more delightfully unpredictable every year. Personally, I’m looking forward to some table-top magic with Vincent Gambini at the Clocktower Café, as well as, of course, Man or Bear. But enough about the tickets I’m planning to book. We caught up with Croydonites directors Anna Arthur, Katie Hurley and Sophie Eustace to find out what makes the festival so different.

Left: Vincent Gambini (photo by Rosie Powell). Right: Man or Bear (photo by Arsalan Sattari-Hicks)

Croydonist: Croydonites seems to get a little more ambitious every year, and this year’s programme ranges from Fringe First-winning theatre and comedy to magic, film and a Croydon movie-location tour. How do you go about putting together a programme that varied while still making it feel distinctly Croydonites?

Katie: Given that the festival is now in its twelfth year, I think we’ve really refined our voice, and feel like we know what sets Croydonites apart from other theatre festivals and events. We also feel very connected to our audience, particularly since the London Borough of Culture, where we’ve had a wider reach and seen audiences from Croydon and beyond returning year on year.

To make something distinctively Croydonites, there always has to be an element of something non-traditional or experimental about the work. We’re not programming Shakespeare revivals. If it’s magic, for example, it’s not magic you’d see in Covent Garden or at a wedding reception – it’s got a little something extra. We want to keep surprising our audience with the genres of work that sit within our umbrella.

Ultimately, we think, ‘What would be a good night out for our audience?’ And that doesn’t always mean laughing and joking, but it definitely means the focus being on entertainment – and top-class entertainment at that.

Left: Frauke Requardt (photo by Camilla Greenwell). Right: Anita Wadsworth – Croydon Builds (photo by Lukasz Izdebski)

Croydonist: You’ve brought plenty of Edinburgh Fringe successes to Croydon over the years. What makes you see a show at Edinburgh and think, ‘Croydon audiences need to see this’?

Anna: If we come out of a show feeling elated, then there is a pretty good chance most of our audience will too. We look for unusual stories or themes, great performances and often an element of surprise. Companies like Sh!t Theatre or Hannah Maxwell have this wonderful ability to tell a number of stories that all weave in and out of each other, often based on true events. We definitely have a soft spot for devised work, often personal to the artist, and usually with an element of fun!

Richard DeDomenici’s previous Redux project and tours

Croydonist: Richard DeDomenici returns to Croydonites this year with another of his Redux projects, this time recreating scenes from ‘Heads of State’ in the Croydon locations used for the original film. What keeps bringing Richard and his rather unusual filmmaking approach back to Croydon – and how can local people get involved this time?

Sophie: Richard is a master at uncovering pockets of Croydon used in the most unlikely of films and is passionate about sharing his Redux DIY versions of films with locals here. He’s a big fan of the architecture and celebrating the atmospheric backdrop Croydon’s streets have created for many film sequences. We’ve collaborated with him since 2018 and this year he’s recreating the night scenes from inner city Warsaw in Heads of State using locations around the town centre. We’re shooting this Sunday, 11 October, but everyone is welcome to join for the world premiere on 14 November at David Lean Cinema where Richard and the local cast and crew will share stories from the making of the latest Redux.

Hannah Maxwell (photo by Lukasz Izdebski)

Croydonist: The accompanying Crollywood tour celebrates Croydon’s surprisingly extensive screen career, from ‘Batman’ and ‘Black Mirror’ to Taylor Swift. Do you think Croydon is becoming more confident about its identity as a film and cultural location?

Sophie: Yes, Croydon is growing significantly more confident as a film location. For years it was an uncredited ‘urban chameleon’ for Hollywood blockbusters providing anonymous backgrounds, however since high-profile projects such as Taylor Swift’s Opalite video (Whitgift Centre) it is gaining attention and recognition for offering a versatile mix of green spaces, high-rise buildings and a ‘unique’ skyline to the film industry. Executive Mayor Jason Perry launched the CRO-llywood Working Group earlier this year with the aim of converting increasing on-screen visibility into sustainable local jobs and creative training so hopefully Croydon benefits from the surge in interest.

Croydon Bites – Batman

Croydonist: CroydonBites, CroydonBuilds and CroydonBeyond now create a route for local artists from trying out an idea to developing a full-length piece. How does that journey work – and have you seen artists or ideas develop through it in ways you never expected?

Katie: We’re really proud of our three-tier local artist development pathway. It grew very organically through conversations with local artists and by responding to what they needed from us.

CroydonBites is very much an open door. If you’re a local artist and you’ve come to the festival and thought, “I’d love to get involved with this,” you can approach us. Artists receive a small seed commission, and a 15–20 minute slot to try something out in front of an audience.

From there, we invite some of that work into CroydonBuilds the following year, where artists receive a larger commission, rehearsal space, a mentor, documentation of the work, and the chance to develop it into a 30–40 minute piece as part of a double bill.

CroydonBeyond is a larger commission with more producer and technical support and its own performance slot. The idea is that, by that stage, the work is ready to have a life beyond Croydon – to tour, transfer or move on to its next stage.

What’s been really exciting is seeing that actually happen. One of the pieces that came through CroydonBeyond has since been picked up by Talawa and is transferring to Soho Theatre next autumn for a full run. That’s exactly what we hoped the pathway could do: give artists somewhere to test an idea, develop it over time, and then hopefully see it go out into the wider world, with Croydonites having been part of that journey from the beginning.

Ollie Horn (photo by Philip Romano)

Croydonist: Croydonites has now presented almost 150 artists and 270 shows. After all those performances, is it getting harder to surprise Croydon audiences – or have audiences become more adventurous along with you?

Anna: Audiences have definitely come on this journey with us, although it’s still possible to surprise them. We are constantly amazed by what artists can achieve, most of them on very small budgets. The kind of work that takes place in small spaces can take more risks, and that’s where it’s at for us.

Croydonist: Croydonites has never exactly played it safe – over the years we’ve seen some pretty unexpected things on stage (some of which I won’t name here 🙂), and this year alone there’s lesbian slime wrestling, live tattooing, one-to-one magic and an absurd show about toast. Is there such a thing as ‘too weird’ for Croydonites?

Anna: Actually yes, we like weird, but it does also have to make sense and be relatable. You can get away with being completely outrageous if you are coherent and have something to say, although we can think of a couple of red lines!

Rosa Garland (photo by Corinne Cumming)

Thank you to Anna, Katie and Sophie for chatting with us. Check out the 2026 programme and book your tickets on their website here. Be sure to follow them on Instagram and Facebook for more updates.

Images courtesy of Croydonites.

Posted by Julia