This October, Proforca Theatre Company launches Here | For 2026, a financially supported season of new work presented at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town.
Led by Proforca and delivered through its producing base at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre, Here | For offers selected companies financial support, rehearsal support, marketing support, mentorship and a supported performance run. The model is unique in the London fringe theatre scene and marks the first time the Lion & Unicorn Theatre has presented a season of this kind.
Selected from more than 50 applications, the inaugural season brings together critically acclaimed producers and companies making theatrically alive, audience-aware work with genuine future potential.
For Proforca, Here | For represents the next stage in the company’s evolution: not only making and presenting its own work, but creating a genuinely impactful offer for companies with ambition to level up their work beyond the confines of a fringe theatre offering.
Following the critical attention and sell-out audience response to Pop Goes the Dollar, Codex return with a funny, formally bold and genuinely angry new piece about a medieval morality play, a village full of faith, closed-door power, money, belief and who gets kept out of the room.
From the Offie Award-winning company, in association with Proforca Theatre, this darkly atmospheric horror brings together four psychological shorts in one uncanny setting, where memory, control and violence refuse to stay buried.
The Other Room is an honest, often funny two-hander that explores what it means to grieve for someone who is still alive, and how you learn to live once they are gone.
Big Love is a brand new solo show about belief, desire, avoidance, pop songs, big feelings, 1,001 dancefloors and the people we choose to give it all up for in the end.
Part party, part confession, part love letter to all of life’s best bits, it marks Proforca’s first new work since February 2025, following Feel, At Last, Lately and Flashbang.
Proforca Theatre Company is an award-winning, critically acclaimed London-based theatre company led by Artistic Director David Brady. The company is the managing company in residence at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre and has produced work including Feel, At Last, Lately, Flashbang and The Shatter Box.
The Lion & Unicorn Theatre is an independent theatre in Kentish Town, London, managed by Proforca Theatre Company.
Here | For 2026 is the first season of its kind at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre. Led by Proforca, the season provides selected companies with financial support, rehearsal support, marketing support, mentorship and a supported performance run. All selected companies were chosen following a rigorous application process, with more than 50 companies applying to be part of the inaugural season.
Meet the companies and creatives behind the season
THEATRE COMPANY
Codex Theatre was founded by director, producer and writer Esalan Gates, whose previous productions include award-nominated, five-star UK tours Maybe I Should Stop and The Waiting Room.
In an age of disinformation and anti-intellectualism, we use theatre to unpack the systems that shape our world, economics, politics and social structures, and reassemble them into gripping, accessible stories.
We blend sharp writing, visual flair and dark humour to create work that provokes, empowers and, crucially, entertains. Our flagship show, Pop Goes the Dollar (21st-24th August 2025 at The Hope Theatre), reframed the 2008 crash as a parable for today’s cost-of-living crisis.
Before we can change anything, we have to understand it.
THEATRE COMPANY
Pither Productions is a female-led production company specialising in dark, twisted and sometimes other-worldly stories.
It was founded in 2021 by Nina Atesh, with a firm focus on bringing new, never-before-seen stories to the stage and screen.
Pither Productions has a goal to work with more female and under-represented creatives in the industry. They are passionate about fringe theatre and independent filmmaking and are excited about what lengths Pither Productions can go to in helping emerging creatives bring their stories alive.
THEATRE COMPANY
Ladybirds unites female directors, artists, producers and creatives to make theatre that will provoke and excite its audience, making work which is joyful, subversive and empowering.
We aim to put women, particularly those over the age of 35, at the heart of our stories, focusing on female bonds, both in family and friendship, where lives are not defined in relation to the men around them.
Theatre’s often skewed representation of a society where women make up 51% of the population not only wastes talent but perpetuates the exclusion of an entire demographic. Moreover, it overlooks the economic and commercial potential of their stories. We are committed to telling these stories.
Ladybird Productions are Sarah Rickman & Ciara Pouncett.
PRODUCER, HERE | FOR
Proforça Theatre Company was founded in 2015 and its Artistic Director is David Brady.
We make bold, human, emotionally charged new work about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
We create stories full of heart, humour, broken edges and big feelings, connecting artists and audiences through theatre that feels immediate, intimate and alive, powered by our passion for work we make and stories told from the world we live in.
We’re a London-based company making new work from our home at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre. We create and produce bold, human stories for London audiences, with an ambition to take that work further through touring, midscale productions and long-term collaborations.
Alongside our larger critically acclaimed and award-nominated productions, we run initiatives like The Side Hustle, our scratch night for new writing and emerging artists. It is a space for artists to test ideas, share work, meet each other and be part of the wider Proforca community.
From our early beginnings in London pub theatres, Proforça has grown into a critically acclaimed, award-nominated company creating work with a distinctive voice of its own. Today, our productions are touring nationally, while original plays created in-house are finding new lives with other companies in 2027 and beyond. More than ten years on, we’re proud to be making work that is uniquely ours, and taking it further than ever before.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, LION & UNICORN THEATRE
David is an award-winning writer, director, and Artistic Director from Coventry, based in London. He is also the Artistic Director of Proforça Theatre Company and the Lion & Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town.
His awards include Off West End “Offie” nominations for Lately and Flashbang, OffComm nominations for At Last and Feel More, and Standing Ovation nominations for AAAAA and Best Director for The Shatter Box. He was the winner of the New Writing Award 2025 as the writer of At Last, as James Lewis with Alexander Knott.
David is a regular press and podcast contributor and was awarded a Special Commendation for Services to Pub Theatre in 2021 by London Pub Theatres Magazine.
For Proforça Theatre Company, credits include If I Go (2016), Saucy Jack & The Space Vixens (2016), The Importance of Being Earnest (2017), Reading Gaol (2017-18), Feel (2018-19), Feel More (2018-20), At Last (2019), AAAAA (2021), Volcano (2022), Lately (2021 & 2023), Flashbang (2022), The Shatter Box (2023-24) and If The Surface Tension Breaks (2025).
In addition to his work at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre, David has directed work at YORAC, Greenwich Theatre, Theatre N16, The King’s Head Theatre, Hertford Theatre, Upstairs at the Western, The Space, The Alma Theatre in Bristol, The Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham and The Albany Theatre, Coventry, amongst others.
SOCIAL MEDIA: @DAVIDBRADY83
PR, HERE | FOR SEASON
Matthew is a multi award-winning theatre director, actor and PR consultant.
He was Artistic Director of The Hope Theatre for five years where he managed all PR and social media for the theatre, winning the Best Social Media OFFIE Award in 2018.
Recent PR clients include Damn Cheek Productions (OFFIE Award and Standing Ovation Awards nominations), Mark Bastin Associates (multiple OFFIE and Fringe Theatre Award nominations), The Shylock Project (OFFIES Assessors Choice and Award nominations), Joe Brown Productions (OFFIE Award Finalist and Fringe Theatre Award nominations), Doubletake Theatre (Standing Ovation Award winner), Medium Rare Productions (OFFIE and Standing Ovation Award nominations), Proforca Theatre (multiple OFFIE Award nominations), plus various companies in The Camden Fringe Festival each year from 2022 onwards.
International clients include Australia-based Mons Sans Productions and US companies Central Standard Theatre and Scena Theatre.
Matthew is also the recommended PR for a number of Off West End theatres including The White Bear, The Hope Theatre, The Bridge House Theatre, Barons Court Theatre, The Hen & Chickens, as well as here at the Lion & Unicorn, running PR campaigns for many of their visiting and in-house productions.
He hosted the London Pub Theatre Standing Ovation Awards 2025 and will be doing so again in November of this year.
MATTHEWPARKER.NET | @MATTHEWPARKER_75