Welcome to the home of Green Carnation COMPANY, telling QUEER STORIES THROUGH quality THEATRE.
We are a Manchester based theatre company dedicated to producing high-quality professional theatrical productions and digital work that address contemporary issues affecting the queer and LGBTQ+ community.
RAISING A GLASS TO SAY FAREWELL TO GREEN CARNATION THEATRE
After much thought and many conversations, we’ve made the decision to close Green Carnation Theatre.
Since 2018 — when it all began with an Instagram post, pints, questionable fancy dress, and a shared desire to make theatre — it’s been a joy to build something that has told bold, thoughtful queer stories and connected us with so many brilliant artists and audiences.
We’re incredibly proud of everything we’ve created, from our debut production of The Pride and our tour of My Night with Reg to Vincent River, our Queer All About It monologue series, and the R&D of Clothes Swap. Supporting new writing and championing LGBTQ+ voices has always been at the heart of our work.
This feels like the right moment to step away. Changes in our personal lives and careers mean we can’t give the company the time and energy it deserves — and we’d rather close this chapter with care and pride than risk losing what made it special.
We’re especially excited that Clothes Swap will continue its journey in such a brilliant way. The show — a joyful, honest story about young LGBTQ+ people, identity, and community — is being taken forward into a full production by Waterside Arts Centre, and directed by Nathaniel Hall (Channel 4’s It’s a Sin, First Time, Toxic). Knowing the piece will continue to grow, reach new audiences, and have a life beyond us feels like the best possible way to look to the future.
A huge thank you to every artist, collaborator, partner, participant and audience member who has supported us along the way and taught us so much.
Manchester’s queer theatre scene is in incredible hands, with companies like Dibby Theatre, Hive North and Queer Dog continuing to tell vital, exciting stories, and venues such as Contact, The Lowry, HOME, Hope Mill Theatre, The Edge and 53Two continuing to champion LGBTQ+ voices. We look forward to cheering you on from the audience.
While Green Carnation Theatre is coming to a close, this isn’t the end of everything — watch this space for future dramaturgy and script development work from Dan Jarvis, continuing to support and champion new writing.
Green Carnation Theatre may be closing, but the future of queer theatre — and these stories — feels incredibly bright. And we need that in these times.
With love and gratitude,
Dan & Dan 💚
QUEER REFLECTIONS: Theatre & Memory
Picador and Green Carnation present a powerful new film inspired by Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings
To mark the paperback release of Booker Prize-winner Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings, Picador Books partnered with Green Carnation Theatre to launch a national writing competition celebrating queer memory, theatre, and identity.
From hundreds of entries by emerging LGBTQ+ writers, the winning script was handpicked by Hollinghurst and adapted into a compelling 12-minute film, now available to watch online
The winner: Quiet as a Threat by Juliana Ayeni-Stevens
Quiet as a Threat explores the emotional toll of exclusion and performative allyship experienced by Black queer women — even within LGBTQ+ spaces. It’s a bold, intimate portrayal of the tension between invisibility and hyper-visibility.
Written by Juliana Ayeni-Stevens, the film stars Manchester-based performer mandla as Nikki, alongside Nicole Evans as Jess. Directed by Dan Ellis and produced by TD Media and Green Carnation Theatre, the film is a powerful response to Hollinghurst’s writing and a celebration of the new voices his work continues to inspire.
Find out more about the project and Quiet as a Threat
CLOTHES SWAP (R&D 2024)
In 2024, we brought Clothes Swap to life – a heart-warming, funny and bold new play by first-time writer Liam Mansfield, inspired by his work with LGBTQ+ young people. Set in a youth club, it’s story exploring identity, community, and the challenges of growing up queer. It features a cast of young queer characters, their protective but exhausted youth leader, and a suspicious outsider who sees the group as a threat to their own group.
Young people in Knowsley and Trafford played a key role in shaping the characters and story through workshops and creative projects, ensuring it reflects their lived experiences and creating their own creative responses including an installation at Waterside Arts in Trafford, and a devised performance at Shakespeare North in Knowsley.
We’re now preparing to tour Clothes Swap in 2025/26, bringing this authentic and resonant piece of theatre to audiences across the North. Watch this space!
Than you to our partners: Waterside Arts Centre, Shakespeare North Playhouse, The Proud Trust, Trafford Youth Services and Imaginarium Theatre.
Clothes Swap R&D has been funded by Arts Council England National Lottery funding.
Images above by Shay Rowan from Waterside Arts sharing (July 2024), images below by Kristian Lawrence from Imaginarium Theatre sharing (October 2024).
Find Out more about ‘Clothes Swap’
Calling queer writers
We’re looking for new queer writers with an original story to share!
It’s been a long couple of year and we’re itching to get to know some new queer writers with scripts, stories and ideas that they are wanting to explore. We’re especially looking for stories that are a little bit different – stories that give a new perspective, or a queer twist.
Sound like you? Get in touch – full info on link below.
Recent Projects
Vincent River
By Philip Ridley
…Davey has seen something he can never forget. Anita is haunted by grief and shame. They have never met. Tonight their paths will collide with devastating consequences.
This year we returned to Hope Mill Theatre with a thrilling new production of Philip Ridley’s ‘Vincent River’ to fantastic audience and critical response.
Thrilling, heart-breaking, and at times darkly humorous, Philip Ridley’s powerful play examines hate crime, loss, prejudice and sexuality in this tense game of cat and mouse set in London’s East End.
QUEER ALL ABOUT IT is a celebration of diverse queer stories and new perspectives through four powerful and moving short films by four emerging LGBTQ+ writers.
A sister remembers a fateful family game of UNO and an argument that can’t be taken back; a new father has the first day of school nerves; a woman must prove the thing she has had to hide to save herself; a prodigal son returns home for a family wedding, ready to reveal their true self.
Green Carnation Company explore topics of HIV, fatherhood, asylum seekers, gender and faith in four monologues by emerging LGBTQ+ writers that shine a light on diverse LGBTQ+ experiences. Working with film-makers Bloody Bandit Production and local performers, we have brought these stories to life through four powerful and moving short films.
We presented these films alongside Nick Maynard’s monologue FLUID at Turn On Fest 2021: Hope Mill Theatre’s annual LGBTQIA+ festival in partnership with Superbia on Friday 19 March.
Watch the films below:
FLUID by Nick Maynard (sexuality)
DRAW FOUR by Lorna Rose Treen (HIV: 30+ Years of Change)
LUNCHBOXES by Matt Gurr (My Queer Family)
PROVE IT by Lynsey Cullen (Queers Beyond Borders)
I CONTAIN MULTITUDES by Priyanka Jha (Faith and Sexuality)
Each film is accompanied by a short talking heads interview film featuring interviews with LGBTQ+ individuals and charity representatives, responding to the topics explored within the monologue.
MY NIGHT WITH REG
By KEVIN ELYOT
In 2020 Green Carnation Theatre delivered their first successful Arts Council funded mid-scale tour across 5 venues with Kevin Elyot’s wonderfully human dark comedy ‘My Night with Reg‘ exploring the lives of 6 gay friends living in the shadow of the 1980’s AIDS crisis.
OutStageUs 2019
September 12 – 14, 2019
‘Fluid’, written by Nick Maynard as part of the OutStageUs festival at The Lowry working with Hive North.
The Pride at Hope Mill Theatre
October 16 – 20, 2018
THE PRIDE
By ALEXI KAYE CAMPBELL
Our debut production at Manchester’s incredible Hope Mill Theatre in 2018 playing to sold out audiences for a full week. An LGBTQ+ story spanning decades as parallel lives in the 1950s and modern day overlap. How far we’ve come and how far we still have to go…
Green Carnation Company 