2025
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 by Liam Mansfield (R&D)
2024
Clothes Swap
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.
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!
Thank 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.
Find Out More about Clothes Swap
Vincent River at Hope Mill Theatre
12 – 19 October 2022
…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
2020
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.
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: An angry young man challenges you to define him by his class, age and sexuality.
DRAW FOUR by Lorna Rose Treen
HIV: 30+ Years of Change: A sister remembers a fateful family game of UNO and an argument that can’t be taken back.
LUNCHBOXES by Matt Gurr
My Queer Family: A new father has the first day of school nerves.
PROVE IT by Lynsey Cullen
Queers Beyond Borders: A woman must prove the thing she has had to hide to save herself.
I CONTAIN MULTITUDES by Priyanka Jha
Faith and Sexuality: a prodigal son returns home for a family wedding, ready to reveal their true self.
Our QUEER ALL ABOUT IT commissions aim to showcase and develop new LGBTQ+ writing, and to explore and celebrate diverse LGBTQ+ experiences.
My Night with Reg 2020 Tour
January 23 – March 12, 2020
In 2020 Green Carnation Company delivered their first successful Arts Council funded mid-scale tour with Kevin Elyot’s wonderfully human dark comedy ‘My Night with Reg‘.
Funny, sad and sweet, Kevin Elyot’s award-winning dark comedy play about the relationships of a group of gay men and their connections to the unseen yet magnetic Reg is a moving exploration of friendship, happiness and love, and their fragility in the shadow of the 1980’s AIDS crisis.
We toured this important and relevant play to five venues (The Lowry, Hull Truck Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Gala Theatre Durham, and Warwick Arts Centre) reaching over 2,000 audiences, receiving incredible responses from audience and press alike.
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
Our debut production at Manchester’s incredible Hope Mill Theatre, playing to sold out audiences for a full week.
Green Carnation Company 