Not darkness for shock — darkness for clarity. The kind that strips away the noise and leaves only the voice, the sound, the presence in the room.
Dark Matters is a season of modern-gothic performance at Circle & Star. Six works across one October fortnight — narrated, sung and spoken — drawn from the literature and music that live in the shadow of our imagination.
Love, guilt and the afterlife collide in a darkly funny psychological horror. Married couple Lucas and Felicity spiral through infidelity, resentment and longing — only to find that some mistakes do not end when life does. A booze-soaked satire of modern love curdles into a surreal nightmare of bureaucratic receptionists and unsettling strangers, where hell is not fire and brimstone but being trapped forever with the consequences of who we really are. What if being “good” was the hardest thing of all?
The monster could speak — cinema just never let him. An interactive trip through the world of Mary Shelley’s classic story: James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) plays on a hundred-inch screen while an original soundtrack is performed live to picture by the composer Jason Frederick, and Gothic screen legend Madeline Smith (Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Bond’s Live and Let Die) is your guide and narrator, leading us into the warning of Prometheus. Projection and lighting move with the film; smoke moves through the dark. A horror happening, in the gothic splendour of an October evening.
Artwork by Scott Neilson · a signed, numbered edition of 55 — profit to nurses and local organisations supporting cancer patients and their families
Two new works in one evening — a puppet alone with her thoughts, and a gothic tale of wanting more. One company, two pieces, two nights.
A single female puppet comes home after a long day, ready to relax and enjoy a quiet evening alone. Or is she? Ashleigh Cheadle, Jasmine Teo and Monica Corder — the three met on the 2026 revival of War Horse at the National — set out to answer Instagram’s most compelling questions: “What is your gut telling you?”, “How do you follow your heart?” and “Where is my biological clock?” — in a way that only a puppet can. Literally. Physical comedy, playful horror and a soundscape that stays with you, in a rare first look at a production still being made. It also asks: does anyone else cradle their boob while watching TV?
Co-created with Jasmine Teo and Monica Corder · production designer Peiyao Wang (Linbury Prize 2023) · sound Niamh Gaffney · lighting Imogen Clarke
A brilliant mind. A dangerous desire. A chance encounter that changes everything. Katherine is driven by ambition and brilliance — until her family legacy confronts her, and an act of compassion sets in motion a chain of events she could never have imagined. As kindness gives way to temptation, she is drawn into a dark and twisted journey where every choice has its consequence. A gothic tale of power, obsession and the price of wanting more.
Chris Fung — Tony Craze Playwriting Award 2026, Soho Theatre · Jasmine Teo — Sir Peter Hall Directing Award runner-up 2024 · production designer Peiyao Wang (Linbury Prize 2023) · sound Niamh Gaffney · lighting Imogen Clarke · illusions Sam Lupton
Dark song. Torch song. The music that arrives after midnight. Lenny Beige draws the season to a close — the deeper end of the repertoire, by candlelight, on the one night the veil is thin.
A reserved front-row seat at every Dark Matters work — Dracula, Just be a good person, Frankenstein, the 24–25 October double bill (Boobinhand and The Jaywick Horror) and Dark Beige — on a single membership card you carry through the season. Show it on the door; we do the rest. Ten passes only.
Fifty-five seats. No distance.
The dark is the point.
28 Heath Street, Hampstead, London NW3 6TE. Hampstead station, Northern line — thirty seconds from the door. Fifty-five seats. Every one close.
Always the right temperature. Warm and cool on demand — fully climate-controlled, whatever the night does outside.
Thirty seconds from Hampstead Tube. Northern line, straight to the door.
Phones away. Once the lights go down, the room belongs to the dark.
A theatre, not a room above a pub. A private entrance, West End-quality sound and lighting, private and secure bathrooms — and fifty-five seats, every one close.