The Yard Theatre has announced that due to popular demand, it will extend its world premiere production of The Flea by James Fritz. Directed by the Yard’s Artistic Director, Jay Miller, the show will run until 2 December.
The Flea features class, crisis, cover-ups, and the crown in a retelling of the Cleveland Street scandal 1889.
Now a largely forgotten episode in London and LGBTQ+ history, the Cleveland Street scandal rocked the nation when police discovered a gay male brothel in Fitzrovia. Sex between men was illegal in Britain at the time, and the brothel’s clients faced prosecution and social rejection if discovered.
The government was accused of a cover up to protect the names of aristocrats and other prominent patrons. Rumours spread that Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria’s grandson and in-line to the British throne, had visited. The police acquired testimonies that an equerry to the Prince of Wales, Lord Arthur Somerset, was a patron. Still, he and the brothel keeper, Charles Hammond, fled abroad before a prosecution could be brought.
Glorious Praise
‘Dickens on ketamine, a gloriously wild ride’ – Broadway World
‘Mischievous, Searching, Gloriously surreal’ – Time Out
‘Ambitious, imaginative, and unashamedly unfettered by convention’ – WhatsOnStage
‘James Fritz is such an exciting playwright’ – The Guardian
Although no clients were ever prosecuted, the male prostitutes, who also worked as telegraph messenger boys for the General Post Office, were unable to rely on the same network of protection as their upper-class patrons. In acts that echo throughout the ages, they were tried by public opinion, humiliated in the press and given custodial sentences.
James Fritz is an award winning playwright from South London. He has won the Critics Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright, the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, The Imison and Tinniswood BBC Audio Drama Awards and the ARIA Radio Academy Award for Best Drama on two occasions. He has also been nominated for the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre and was runner-up in the 2013 Verity Bargate Award.
Director Jay Miller is the theatre director who founded The Yard Theatre and has been the driving force behind the organisation since its inception.
Jay told QX, ‘The Flea is a glorious depiction of Victorian England, demonstrating that although progress does take place, some things always stay the same. This is a vivid (and sometimes hilarious) portrait of Royal Britain. A Britain that is angry, deferential, unequal, patient and in awe of its past.‘
Watch the latest trailor of The Flea at The Yard Theatre.
Book tickets to The Flea https://www.theyardtheatre.co.uk/events/theflea
THE FLEA at The Yard Theatre, Unit 2a Queen’s Yard, London E9 5EN, (2 minutes walk from Hackney Wick station, or 20 minutes from Stratford station).
Monday – Saturday until 2 December 2023 at 7:30 pm. Matinees on 28 October, 4, 11, 18 & 25 November and 2 & 9 December at 2:30pm
See more fabulous photos …
Book tickets to The Flea at The Yard Theatre https://www.theyardtheatre.co.uk/events/theflea
