Quick introduction to your production, venue and performance times.

Much Crazy About Nothing is an absurd comedy about love, family and the strange things people do to make relationships work.

The story starts with a professional break-up agency, where you can pay someone to end a relationship for you. But what happens when a woman who breaks up couples for a living meets a man whose marriage proposal has just been rejected?

The two unexpectedly fall in love and try to build their own happy family. Then a mysterious baby arrives, and things get increasingly ridiculous.

Produced by Shhh Theatre, the show is coming to Playground Theatre as part of Voila! Festival 2026, on 3 November at 7 pm and 4 November at 8.30 pm.

What inspired you to start making or performing theatre?

I’ve always loved the feeling of being in a theatre and finding myself connected to something happening on stage. Sometimes it’s a line, a movement or even a moment of silence that stays with me, even when the story is nothing like my own life.

Theatre has also been an emotional refuge for me. It’s somewhere I can put everyday pressures aside and allow myself to feel things without needing to explain them. That doesn’t mean every performance is comforting. Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable or raises questions I’d rather avoid.

I wanted to make theatre because I knew how much that space meant to me, and hoped I could create that possibility for someone else.

Have you taken this production anywhere before? How was it received by the audience?

We premiered Much Crazy About Nothing at Camden People’s Theatre on 17 and 18 July 2026, and both performances sold out, which was really encouraging for us.

It was the first time we’d shared this rather chaotic story with an audience, after spending so much time imagining how it might work on stage. Seeing the production finally come to life outside the rehearsal room was a special moment for the whole team.

Having the opportunity to present the show to a full house on both nights meant a lot to us, especially as an independent theatre company. We’re now really looking forward to bringing it to Voila! Festival and seeing how a different audience responds to the story.

Why did you choose to perform at the Voila Festival?

What first attracted us to Voila! was its international and cross-cultural focus.

Much Crazy About Nothing is a fairly ridiculous comedy, but beneath the chaos are questions about cultural differences, identity and what people expect love and family to look like. Those questions can feel very different depending on where you’re from and what you’ve experienced.

I liked the idea of bringing the show into a festival where different perspectives are part of the conversation, rather than something unusual. We also wanted to give the production a life beyond its July premiere.

I’m curious to see what a new audience notices, laughs at or finds familiar in the story.

Has there been anyone in your life who has inspired you to work in the theatre?

Not one particular person, actually. I think it was theatre itself, and the experiences I had as an audience member, that first drew me in.

Since I started working in theatre, though, I’ve found inspiration in all sorts of people I’ve collaborated with. I love being in a room with people who have different backgrounds, experiences and ideas.

Someone might suggest a small change, ask an unexpected question or see a scene completely differently, and suddenly we have something none of us would have come up with alone.

That’s one of my favourite things about making theatre. It belongs to everyone involved, and every collaboration changes the way I think about my work.

How long have you been working on this particular production?

Quite a while, actually! Our playwright spent around three years writing and developing the script, long before we brought it into a rehearsal room.

We officially started collaborating in November 2025, when we began planning to stage the production in 2026. That meant turning a story full of strange situations, complicated relationships and unexpected turns into something that could actually happen in front of an audience.

After months of preparation and rehearsals, we premiered at Camden People’s Theatre in July. Now we’re bringing the show to Voila! Festival in November.

So although the story is full of chaos, there has been quite a lot of planning behind that chaos!

Do you have anything that you are planning on seeing while you are at the Voila Festival?

Absolutely! I’m putting together my list at the moment, but it’s proving surprisingly difficult because there are so many shows I’m interested in.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to is seeing work by artists from different cultural backgrounds, especially the different ways people use performance to tell stories.

When you’re busy making your own show, it’s easy to spend most of your time thinking about rehearsals, schedules and everything that needs doing. I love that a festival also gives me the chance to sit in the audience again and be surprised by someone else’s work.

What would you like audiences to take away from your production?

Now I just need to work out how many performances I can squeeze into my schedule!

I don’t think audiences necessarily have to take something away from every performance. Sometimes, I’d rather they had the chance to leave something behind.

Maybe they can leave their everyday worries at the door, put aside questions they haven’t found answers to yet, and just enjoy an hour of absolute absurdity. Have a laugh, get lost in the story, and then step back into the real world.

If something about love, family, identity or what we consider ‘normal’ stays with them afterwards, that’s lovely too. But it doesn’t have to.

And of course, if they leave the theatre, they are still laughing, wondering whether the real world is actually any less absurd than what they’ve just seen on stage, even better!

Written by Jingwen Lu

https://www.voilafestival.co.uk/events/much-crazy-about-nothing/