WHO THE HELL ARE

NOT TOO TAME?

“Our work celebrates regional identity, champions Community and feels like a gig. We craft exhilarating nights out across various venue types and highlight to audiences that theatre IS for them, both as a form of entertainment and a potential career path.

Not Too Tame are proud associate artists of Derby Theatre and Shakespeare North Playhouse and have worked with a diverse range of National Portfolio Organisations to help them successfully reach and entertain audiences that have yet to be engaged. 

At Not Too Tame, we put our audiences at the very heart of what we do.”

(Artistic Director, Jimmy Fairhurst )

For more than a decade, Not Too Tame has been quietly — and sometimes raucously — rewriting the rules of popular theatre. Under the steady hand of UK Theatre Award Nominee, Jimmy Fairhurst, the company has had an average of 78% of ticket sales across all productions for over 11 years since their site-specific Edinburgh Fringe hit, Early Doors. Their last midscale, sell-out production of Twelfth Night at Shakespeare North Playhouse saw a staggering 38% of new attendees to live theatre in a venue. Over its 11 years of critical and audience acclaim, the company has developed a signature style that is equal parts raw energy, finely tuned craft and a refusal to put barriers between stage and stalls. Much of that ethos can be traced to artistic director Jimmy Fairhurst, whose initial three years with Cheek By Jowl brought a nuanced understanding of space, a rigorous physicality and an ensemble discipline to his work. Add to that the influence of directors like Mike Leigh and Matthew Dunster, and the creative friendships he has fostered with figures such as Trevor Griffiths, and you find a methodology steeped in precision yet bristling with vitality. It is this fusion — exacting artistry rooted in lived experience — that has kept Not Too Tame both relevant and beloved, a company that manages to be populist without ever feeling compromised.

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT:

• 10% of A Midsummer Night’s Dream audience had never been to the theatre before.

• 38% of Twelfth Night Audiences had never been to the theatre before.

Putting bums on seats:

• 78% is the average ticket yield across 10 years of Not Too Tame shows.

Creating opportunities:

• Not Too Tame gives professional debut job opportunities in every production, both on and offstage.

• Not Too Tame holds open audition workshops on every production.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it 😎

Not Too Tame is an independent theatre company based in Warrington.