Damsel Productions and Bush Hall are delighted to present one of the first live shows of 2021 with some of the funniest and wildest women performers on the UK circuit.

Announcing a legendary line-up for the hottest new ticket in town, DAMSEL IN THE BUSH, a riotous new comedy and cabaret show presented by Damsel Productions and Bush Hall. Kemah Bob will host the evening with Rosie Jones, Sophie Duker, Elf Lyons, Siblings, Loose Willis (Pecs), Yuriko Kotani and Jordan Gray performing in front of real-life audiences on 10 and 11 June in one of London’s most thrilling venues. They’ll be joined by an all-women live band led by Anya Pearson of Dream Nails and followed by DJs.

Bush Hall said: “We are so delighted to open our doors up again and to kick off working with Damsel Productions and hosting this incredible line-up feels like the perfect way to bring comedy and theatre back to life.”

Damsel Productions said: “Damsel is thrilled to be bringing live entertainment back to audiences, with our ongoing mission to celebrate and give a platform to talented women artists. Having just dipped our toes into the world of comedy and cabaret, we look forward to continuing this trend, starting with this exciting new show at the iconic Bush Hall!”

KEMAH BOB is a comedian, writer, producer and drag king from Houston, TX, now based in London. Her work is pro-black and sex positive, using comedy as a tool for enlightenment and empowerment. Kemah has MC’d events performed at clubs, theatres and festivals across the UK. She is also a regular co-host on The Guilty Feminist podcast and can be seen on Stand Up For Live Comedy (BBC1), Jonathan Ross’ Comedy Club (ITV), Don’t Hate The Playaz and The Stand- Up Sketch Show (both ITV2). Kemah runs the FOC It Up! Comedy Club and can also be seen online, delivering her TED Talk, What Would Kanye Do?

SOPHIE DUKER is a comedian and writer whose favourite things include breaking hearts, taking names and telling jokes with the confidence of a cis straight middle-class white man. Her Edinburgh Fringe Show, Venus, saw her nominated for the Best Newcomer award and gained five-star reviews. The success of this show saw her performing a sold-out two-week run at the Soho Theatre. Sophie has appeared on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (Channel 4), 8 Out of 10 Cats (E4), Mock the Week (BBC2), Don’t Hate The Playaz (ITV2), Dave Gorman’s Terms and Conditions Apply (Dave) and Frankie Boyle’s New World Order (BBC2). She can also be seen in Riot Girls (Channel 4), Quickies (BBC3) and Roast Battle (Comedy Central). Sophie is also the host of the monthly comedy night, Wacky Racists Comedy Club.

JORDAN GRAY is a comedian and recording artist and the creator and co-star of the record-breaking Comedy Central series Transaction. Beyond comedy, she is perhaps best known for being the first ever transgender contestant on The Voice, reaching the semi-finals in 2016.

ROSIE JONES is a comedian, writer and actor. After starting out as a television researcher, she turned to stand-up in 2017 and has gone on to appear on TV shows including Jonathan Ross, Live At The Apollo (BBC1) and Mock The Week (BBC2), Her own primetime travel show, Trip Hazard: My Great British Adventure, recently aired on Channel 4. She has just written her first book, The Amazing Edie Eckhart, the first in series for pre-teens about disability and sexuality.

YURIKO KOTANI is a UK-based Japanese comedian. She was named as “one to watch” by Time Out and won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2015. She appeared on Russell Howard’s Stand Up Central, Pls Like (BBC3), The Dog Ate My Homework (CBBC), Big Juice (Channel 4), Paul Hollywood Eats Japan (Channel 4) and Soho Theatre’s online play, The Boss of it All.

ELY LYONS has steadily gained a cult reputation as one of the most innovative performers on the UK comedy circuit. Since 2017 Elf has been nominated for Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe, the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality, Fringe World Perth’s Best Comedy Show and in 2018 Elf won Pick of the Fringe at the Adelaide Fringe, Australia.

SIBLINGS is a comedy double act featuring character comedians and IRL sisters Maddy and Marina Bye. In the last four years they have performed across the UK in festivals and on the live circuit. They have sold out three consecutive Edinburgh Fringe runs as well as a sold-out extended run at Soho Theatre in 2019. In 2020, The Guardian included them as one of “The sisters who became ferociously funny comedy duos”. Siblings is a cacophony of character and sketch. Marina studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama while Maddy studied at the same time at the Parisian Clown School, École Philippe Gaulier.

LOOSE WILLIS is an electrifying performer, hilarious raconteur and erotic enigma who is currently residing in his car. Loose performs as part of Pecs Drag Kings, an all-women and non-binary Offie Award-winning theatre and cabaret company who’ve been creating critically acclaimed shows for the LGBTQ+ community since 2013.

Damsel Productions

Hannah Hauer-King and Kitty Wordsworth co-founded theatre company Damsel Productions in 2015 to produce its inaugural production of Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Dry Land at Jermyn Street Theatre. Damsel was set up with the key aim to develop scripts written by women, producing them with all-women creative and production teams to help address the misrepresentation and lack of representation of women in theatre, on and offstage. Damsel is intersectional in its outlook and feminism, and strives to work with diverse teams of women, putting as many lesser-told aspects of women’s experiences on stage. Damsel has produced six full-scale productions at theatres including Soho Theatre, The Bunker and Jermyn Street Theatre, sketch comedy, new writing nights, London’s first all-women directing festival, Damsel Develops, and Damsel Outdoors, a festival of commissioned new plays written for the outdoors (Damsel’s answer to the pandemic closing theatre down). Damsel has produced comedy and cabaret at Live @ Zedel, for which it was a resident company, and is delighted to continue to produce more comedy, cabaret and variety shows in the future.

Bush Hall

Built by a publisher in 1904 as one of a trio of London dance halls he commissioned for each of his daughters, Bush Hall is the only surviving of the three. The venue has enjoyed past lives as a soup kitchen in WWII, a bingo hall, a rehearsal space for the likes of The Who, Adam Faith and Cliff Richard in the late 50s/60s, and finally a snooker and social club in the 80s/90s, before being restored to its former musical glory in 2001 by present owners Charlie Raworth and Emma Hutchinson. Today, Bush Hall hosts everything from up-and-coming and established musicians to comedy and cabaret shows, wedding receptions, conferences, corporate events and film shoots. The space boasts high ceilings, beautiful acoustics, much history and many stories.