We’re thrilled to share our exciting Spring 2025 season.
You may already be well acquainted with ARC and our programme, or you may be discovering ARC for the first time. You might have heard of ARC, but not really be sure what it is that we do. Whichever best describes you, you’ll find the latest information about our offering this January to April listed below. While you’re browsing through we’ll hope you’ll see our ambition for what we want ARC to offer our communities, and what ARC’s HERE FOR…
HERE FOR… inspiration
HERE FOR… connections
HERE FOR… good nights out
HERE FOR… surprises
HERE FOR… conversations
HERE FOR YOU!
We hope to see you at ARC soon. Even if you’re not coming along for a ticketed event, our building is open and we’d love you to stop by and say hello.
HERE TO… Make New Work
ARC’s Make New Work Programme is supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation and is designed to support artists to make new performance-based work involving local people in the creative process and inspired by one of fourteen provocations created in collaboration with local communities in Stockton. This January to March we’re welcoming three exciting new pieces of work that each reflect one of these key themes.
Not Yours | Saturday 15 February
Not Yours, a daring and electrifying cabaret, circus, and theatre show created and hosted by comedian and theatre-maker Roisin Crowley Linton, takes audiences on an emotional journey through life after sexual violence. This powerful production explores the complexities of trauma, recovery, and empowerment, blending moments of rage, joy, vulnerability, and community.
Not Yours will also include a newly formed burlesque troupe from Stockton. Roisin will work with participants to reclaim ownership of their bodies and sexuality, an empowering act for both performers and the audience. The troupe’s performances are a vital, life-changing part of the show, underscoring the importance of self-expression and solidarity on the path to healing. Find out more about joining the burlesque troupe.
Engine of Embers | Saturday 15, Saturday 22 & Saturday 29 March
Engine of Embers is a performance research project that experiments with releasing and transmuting community rage into an engine to power a performance. Anger is a hot and potent power supply, yet we often find ourselves subdued into passivity and powerlessness by overwhelming forces of oppression. Toi will open a space to engage with our collective rage, unlock frustrations, voice our cares, pierce through apathy and warm up passionate forces in our spirits to create change.
Toi is inviting members of the community of Stockton & Tees Valley to join per in exploring the transformation of anger through the body. During March 2025, Toi will hold three creative sessions experimenting with releasing anger through sound and movement, through visiting a rage room, through protesting together and moving towards subsequent feelings of lightness, energy and connection. We will explore how we can harness and sustain our fire, connecting to our nervous systems and deepening our awareness of the pathways of frustrations and rage in our inner and outer world.
Make Yourself Comfortable | Saturday 26 April
Make Yourself Comfortable is a live exhibition of a negotiation between two strangers. We watch as they work out how to build something together: a piece of flat pack furniture.
The whole thing happens in a public. Some people will watch, others will walk by; some people will offer to lend a hand. Once the furniture is built it’s packed up and taken to its new home, its primary aim to make somebody else a little bit more comfortable in the world.
Early in 2025 there will be a call out both online and on the streets of Stockton on Tees. The final event will take place in the town centre at the end of April 2025. If you would like us to keep you updated about Make Yourself Comfortable please ontact our Box Office on 01642 525199 or email [email protected].
There’s also another chance to see one of our previous Make New Work commissions, as Joe Kent-Walters is Frankie Monroe: LIVE!! returns as part of our comedy programme in March.
HERE FOR…Theatre
From work produced by ARC’s own Associate Artists like Vici Wreford-Sinnott’s Unruly, and Daniel Bye’s Imaginary Friends, to visiting companies such as Tmesis Theatre with SealSkin, ARC’s theatre programme gives audiences a chance to see some of the best bold, thought-provoking, and entertaining contemporary theatre from around the country, here in Stockton.
RUM | Thursday 30 January – Saturday 1 February
Driftwood | Wednesday 19 & Thursday 20 February
Unruly | Thursday 6 & Friday 7 March
The Northern School of Art present The Expected and The Unknown | Wednesday 12 March
Imaginary Friends | Wednesday 19 – Friday 21 March
The Northern School of Art present InterACT Festival 2025 | Tuesday 25 & Thursday 27 March
Look After Your Knees | Friday 28 March
James Rowland: Learning to Fly | Thursday 10 April
Luke Wright Joy! | Saturday 12 April
HERE FOR… Music
You may have recently seen that Maxïmo Park have been announced as the headline act for Stockton Calling 2025. Better still, between now and then, we still have loads of great gigs on the way with some exciting acts to look forward to. Whether you’re looking for a dose of local folk with Megson, or an opportunity to spend some time in the company of rock legends like Albert Lee, or Rick Buckler of The Jam, we’ve got you covered. And that’s not forgetting Jeremy McMurray and The Pocket Jazz Orchestra, with their talented line-up of musicians making regular appearances here.
ARCtic Piranha Club Night | Saturday 25 January
The Spirit & Sound of Steely Dan: Nearly Dan in concert | Saturday 1 February
Jazz Night with Jeremy McMurray and The Pocket Orchestra | Thursday 20 February
A Night of Memories & Music with Rick Buckler of The Jam | Thursday 13 March
Stockton Calling 2025 | Saturday 19 April
HERE FOR… Comedy
Whether it’s the regular offering of our monthly comedy club Catch 22, the ever popular Beat The Gong, or any one of the huge array of shows from some of the best recognised comedians from TV and beyond, there are laughs guaranteed as we head into spring. Matt Reed kicks off the season with the return of Junk Box in January, Maisie Adam brings her show Appraisal to us in March, and Joe Kent-Walters returns as Frankie Monroe in a show he made here at ARC as part of our Make New Work programme before taking it to the Edinburgh for a successful run at this year’s Fringe. Come along and join us for a night full of laughs.
Matt Reed’s Junk Box | Friday 24 January
Catch 22 with Dave Twentyman | Friday 31 January
Pete Selwood: Uprising | Saturday 8 February
Sophie Duker: BUT DADDY I LOVE HER | Saturday 15 February
Rachel Fairburn: Side Eye | Saturday 21 February
Maisie Adam: Appraisal | Saturday 22 February
Catch 22 with Danny McLoughlin, Phil Nichol and Kai Humphries | Friday 28 February
Lucy Porter: No Regrets! | Thursday 6 March
Beat The Gong with MC Danny McLoughlin | Friday 14 March
Eshaan Akbar: Live | Saturday 15 March
Joe-Kent Walters is Frankie Munroe: LIVE! | Saturday 22 March
Ed Byrne: Tragedy Plus Time | Thursday 27 March
Catch 22 with MC Nina Gilligan and Abi Carter | Friday 28 March
Dave Twentyman: Let Me Entertain You | Friday 11 April
Catch 22 with MC Kate Smurthwaite and Andrew White
HERE FOR… Family
Our commitment to high quality theatre experiences for families continues with Drift, The Last Unicorn Airways, and The Three Little Vikings. Alongside all of these brilliant shows, you can continue to enjoy a great time with your little ones every Saturday here at ARC with our weekly Fun With Film activity, offering film screenings picked specially for young audiences and their families, alongside wonderful creative and craft activities for families to get involved with together. Plus keep your eyes peeled for announcements about Club Groovy dates for the new year very soon.
Fun with Film | Every Saturday
The Last Unicorn Airways | Thursday 27 February – Saturday 1 March
The Three Little Vikings | Saturday 5 April
HERE FOR… Cinema
From January we’ll be bringing you a stripped back cinema programme focused on presenting some high-quality specialist content you won’t find anywhere else. There’ll be plenty more to come, but what we can confirm so far includes highly acclaimed performances on screen and the continuation of our monthly music documentary film club We Will Doc You.
MACBETH: David Tennant & Cush Jumbo