Awkward Productions are coming back to the Factory Theatre this summer with their unforgettable production of ‘Diana; The Untold and Untrue Story’. Founded by Linus Karp and Joseph Martin they are firm favourites with the TFT audience. The team are not only ambitious and ridiculously talented, they are always a joy to host for our in house operations team.
When we invited Awkward Productions to write an article about themselves for our members, Linus didn’t hesitate to put pen to paper. So, without further a-do, here is their backstage story:
“As a queer foreigner, I felt like the roles I was seen for were few and limited – hence I started a theatre company, meaning I could now play anything without anybody stopping me – a cat, the People’s Princess or even Gwyneth Paltrow. After having missed the feeling of a live audience so badly throughout the pandemic, we decided to put the audience role central in our work. Our shows are not performed for the audience, but with the audience – giving each show a unique live feeling and ensuring the show is something we create together. We want our version of theatre to be something you could never replace with watching a film.
Mixing pop culture, puppetry, multimedia and said audience participation, we’ve found great success with our shows Gwyneth Goes Skiing and Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story. Both have toured internationally after selling out at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Gwyneth Goes Skiing played at Tobacco Factory Theatres last year – we had such a blast, so we are delighted to be bringing Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story to the venue this June.
In times like these we think it’s important to perform shows centering around queer joy – having an audience coming together, laugh together and do work that is queer and celebratory feels needed.
We are due to open our new show The Fit Prince (who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holiday here)) at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. We hope to be able to continue to create fun pop culture-based shows and tour internationally.
But before that – Diana is coming to Tobacco Factory Theatres. Bristol is the first city (outside of the fringe) we ever sold out a show in and has been a special place for us since. The open, progressive, joyful and ridiculous people of Bristol are a perfect match for our shows, and we can’t wait to see (and perform with!) a Tobacco Factory audience again!”
To find out more about Awkward Productions, visit their website:- https://linktr.ee/awkwardprods
Posted on 21 May 2025
