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In December 2025, The Theatres Trust, in partnership with the Wolfson Foundation, awarded the Criterion £12,000 from its “Theatre Improvement Scheme” to support the journey towards reducing our environmental impact.
Find out more about our environmental sustainability aims here
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Boondog 'Lovett'
Newly-widowed Mrs Lovett needs to find a way to survive. Using skills learned from a whaler father, a courtesan mother and a butcher husband, Eleanor “recalibrates” her life - and her relationship with God.
An origin story set before her infamous partnership with Sweeney Todd, we discover what would later lead her to turn pie-maker.
You may think you already know Mrs. Lovett, but this new play explores what made her: the brutal choices and disappointments of a life in poverty. When the difference is life or death, morality becomes a moveable feast - and Eleanor is getting hungry…
“One of the most relentless, compelling pieces of work at the Fringe…. An extraordinarily powerful hour” - Broadway Baby
“An entirely disarming performance, precise, committed and unflinching…. This production is one that you can really sink your teeth into” - Binge Fringe
“This brilliant script, paired with even more powerful acting, had me mesmerised…. As exciting and captivating as the biggest of productions”- Radio Exe
ABOUT BOONDOG THEATRE:
BoonDog Theatre is a multi award-winning collaborative theatre company based in the Midlands, creating exciting new stories for the stage. Creative Director Lucy Roslyn and Productions Director Jamie Firth focus on making intimate, character driven pieces working with a team of collaborators from various disciplines to bring them to the stage, telling stories that start conversations that last long beyond the audience leave the theatre. Their work is almost always darkly comic, always aims for the heart, and what they describe as “covertly political”. Their work is led with a passion for detailed research when it comes to historical or psychological elements. BoonDog Theatre are proud to be Associate Artists of the Royal and Derngate, Northampton.
Underdog: The Other Other Bronte
Charlotte Brontë has a confession about how one sister became an idol, and the other became known as the third sister. You know the one. No, not that one. The other, other one… Anne.
This is not a story about well-behaved women. This is a story about the power of words. It’s about sisters and sisterhood, love and jealousy, support and competition.
Sarah Gordon’s play is an irreverent retelling of the life and legend of the Brontë sisters, and the story of the sibling power dynamics that shaped their uneven rise to fame.
Reviews of the play
"The ever-enduring yet constantly contended myths surrounding the Brontë sisters are impishly upended in Sarah Gordon’s raucously funny new play... which mixes gothic tropes with family drama and astute literary criticism." Marianka Swain, London Theatre Reviews
"a portrait of the competition and mutual support that often co-exist among sisters, and of the challenges of being a female novelist in early Victorian times...jolly good fun" Paul Lewis, Theatre Reviews.
"This is a wild romp that toes the line between the sober and the surreal... before pulling on our heartstrings in the closing throes." The Arts Despatch
"‘Underdog’ is a very funny play... It has nuanced points about authorship, legacy and family... you’ll have fun, and you’ll probably want to read ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ afterwards". TimeOut.
EDI Assessment
In line with our EDI policy, we undertake an EDI impact assessment of all our artistic programming. This play deals with the issue of historical gender discrimination. For the purposes of the story narrative, specific playing gender identifications are called for. Otherwise there can be flexibility around casting with regard to ethnicity, age and disability.
Turning the Criterion Green
Turning the Criterion Green
Since 1961, the Criterion Theatre has entertained audiences from its home on Berkeley Road South, Earlsdon. For many years it has been recognised that our wonderful building needs modernising to take it into the future and to support all our users and visitors.
Thanks to an incredible gift left by Chris Murly (one of our founding members) and generous donations over many years we have been able to complete the Front of House redevelopment which officially opened in December 2025.
But that is just the start of our plans, with our sights now set on:
- Air conditioning in the auditorium and dressing rooms to remove the reliance on the Victorian heating system and improve our green credentials
- Investing in roof and wall insulation to make the building easier and cheaper to heat and cool
- Adding solar panels to our roof to generate electricity and support our net-zero challenge
- Replacement of the remaining Tungsten lights
As a volunteer-led, charitable theatre company we rely on the generosity of our volunteers, audience members and donors to continue a tradition that stretches back 70 years. If you feel you can help via a one-off donation, a regular contribution or playing the Criterion Lottery, please contact Barbara Sowerby at fundraising@criteriontheatre.co.uk to discuss how you can help or alternatively via our Just Giving page