Bio
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Winner of the Sunday Times Playwriting Award and with several sell-out runs and published texts, Josh Overton is a Hull-based Playwright and Theatremaker who's passion for language and lyricism can be found at the heart of all his work. Collaborating as a playwright with theatres and companies up and down the UK and as a poet with the Loud Poets of Edinburgh, his work is political, violent, angry, campy, dumb and kind: a million different genres and tones but always pointed firmly in the direction of progress, sanity and a cautious bit of optimism.
Josh is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of From Below, a Hull based spectacle performance and theatre company that focuses on fusing fire circus and magic with storytelling. He has just been awarded the Writers Guild of Great Britain New Commission Scheme to create a new play for Hull Truck's mainstage This Damp Won't Burn. |
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"There is already a buzz around the company and writer Josh Overton" |
Theatre Work
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ANGRY/ 2015
"A violent assault on our senses and sensibilities" The Times - The Party's Over Now Winner of the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, ANGRY is a punk-rock spoken word set with bass guitars and punching about why every generation fails the one that follows it. Sad Little Man / 2017
"Hypnotic, visceral, perfectly captured and beautifully executed" The Sunday Times "This performance is incredibly brave, and deeply, deeply moving." The Edinburgh Guide Given the Judges Commendation for Writing at the NSDF, Sad Little Man is a stand-up tragedy set performed by the mind of a young man in shock. Described as “a stunning, bittersweet story” and “theatrically beautiful” by Noises Off Magazine, a combination of performance poetry, physical theatre and projection tell the story of the many lives of Lee and someone he loves. St*pid F*cking K*ds / 2017 A touring show commissioned by The New Wolsey Theatre and premiered at their Pulse Festival, St*pid F*cking K*ds interrogates why grown ups hate teenagers and why teenagers are justified in hating back harder. A Love Song for Dickheads / 2018 (Or Human Electric Tree) Commissioned by Hull Truck in partnership with Silent Uproar, A Love Song for Dickheads is a campy, rage-y story about how the school system is perfectly primed to fail certain kids and creates convicts. Cocaine Rat Cage / 2018 Originally commissioned for Hull Truck's GROWFEST and later staged by a new company at the Annex Theatre Edinburgh, Cocaine Rat Cage is the story of Seb, a middle aged man who's suicide attempt is interrupted by a mugging. Dungeons and Dragons: The Unofficial Adventure / 2019 A collaboration with Silent Uproar: part board game, part theatre, part stand up comedy, DnD: The Unofficial Adventure is an interactive Christmas show where families make the deadly decisions and roll the dice to win. FAUSTUS / 2021 / 2022 "Making theatre that entertains the forty year old History PhD as much as their ten year old daughter is no easy feat. This isn’t a Faustus for the purists and it is all the better for it. " EXEUNT - FAUSTUS: Fire and Fury "Theatre at its very best. It’s unique fusion of humour, politics, spectacle and audience interaction combined perfectly to create a stunning evening which delighted audiences of all ages." Paul Smith - Middlechild Theatre "A Summer Spectacular!" The Stage FAUSTUS is From Below's debut production. Pantomime, fire spinning, satire, flaming swords, biting political commentary and explosive mushroom spores. FAUSTUS is an open air, fire spinning theatre spectacle for audiences of all ages, an adaptation of the old myth that has more in common with Star Wars than it does with Protestant propaganda. FAUSTUS REVIEWS - The Stage https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/faustus-from-below-review-at-stage-at-the-dock-hull -Exeunt http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/review-faustus-stage-dock-hull/ DANTE/ 2023 Diving back into the fiery spectacular world of From Below Theatre's work, DANTE follows the titular poet led by the ghost of a tour guide through the seven layers of Hell. Boring demons to death with poems, becoming mates with a dragon, and narrowly avoiding Mother Theresa's flaming scythe of death. A play very loosely inspired by the original poem, DANTE wowed audiences with explosive special effects and heartwarming comedy about love, friendship and Armageddon. LEVIATHAN/ 2024 A brand new fusion of Storytelling and hyper-immersive projection art in collaboration with Grim Visions, Leviathan is an underwater Sci-fi horror play that follows the story of amnesiac engineer Nora, stranded at the bottom of the ocean and haunted by the ghosts of her past and eldritch abominations hiding in the waters outside, desperate to get in. |
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Photography by Loki's Lens and Larkin Media
