2024 Lineup

In 2024 the London Lovecraft Festival went to a two night format, focusing on new works and adding interactive theatre to the mix.

 

Programme, 2024 festival, 11-12 February Drayton Arms Theatre

Sunday 11 February

5 PM: London Lovecraft New Writing Competition Winner (Robert Cooke, ‘The Prisoner’) staged reading

7PM: A Night Beneath the Elder Sign

  • Kai Hastur’s “The Music of Eric Zahn.”
  • TL Wiswell’s shadow puppet  “The Doom that Came To Sarnath”
  • Shivers performing William Hope Hodgson’s “The Voice in the Night.”

Monday 12 February

7:30 PM: Into the Dreamlands (interactive Lovecraft experience)

 

Then at 7, “A Night Beneath the Elder Sign” brings a weird fiction triple header to hungry horror fans. First up is Kai Hastur’s presentation of “The Music of Eric Zahn.” With his interest in “fireside chats gone horribly wrong,” and with last year’s sold-out “Shroud of Charon” under his belt, this storytelling session seems sure to leave the audience gasping and reeling for the fresh cold air of the outside world. Was that a live viola da gamba accompanying him … or did we just imagine it?

 This is followed by TL Wiswell’s second Lovecraftian shadow puppet show, “The Doom that Came To Sarnath.” It’s a short work, and its emphasis on frogs means it’s not really best suited for human actors, but since when do amphibians – or even full time water breathers – not get to have stage time of their own? Sam Enthoven joins Wiswell with musical illustration to her low-fi shadow puppets, for a second outing after last year’s sold out “Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath.”

The evening ends with festival favorite Shivers returning with William Hope Hodgson’s “The Voice in the Night.”  Hodgson was a well known inspiration for Lovecraft’s writing and we’re very excited to bring a bit of fungal fun to the evening’s proceedings. Shivers curates lesser known horror stories, read to a sonic landscape given structure by Sam Enthoven’s eerie theremin. It is the polar opposite of Grand Guignol … but you may never look at a chanterelle the same after the curtain comes down..

Night two of the festival has a single gem at its heart: Leo Doulton’s “Into the Dreamlands,” an interactive Lovecraft experience brought to you by one of the writers behind the overnight  “The Key of Dreams.” “Offered anything you can dream of, what will you do? What will you learn? And what can you afford to lose?” We anticipate that as many people will leave the theater as go in … but we’re not absolutely sure this will be the case as the old gods are hungry and those who step into the land of dreams are not guaranteed to return.

“I’m really excited about this year’s line up,” says festival founder TL Wiswell. “I know people would like it to be longer but I felt having it be compact and all new shows was a format our audience would support. We’re platforming other weird fiction, we have the new writing comp back, Kai’s back, Shivers is back, and I get to visit the Dreamlands. I mean of course I’m shitting frogs at the same time but it’s what happens when you piss off Bokrug. Next time don’t mess with random idols, it’s a lesson we should all take to heart.”