Monster comedy play making a big splash in Preston

Herman Melville's classic tale of revenge and retribution has been retold in this inventive, comedic retelling on the high seas.

The production is the latest piece of new writing to tour from Hambledon Productions, a Lincolnshire based theatre company of seventeen years that specialises in classic comedy and new, local writing. After a sell-out tour of festivals and smaller venues in 2023, Maybe Dick, via an exciting co-production with New Bedford’s Whaling Museum in Massachusetts, USA, is embarking on a new nationwide theatre tour.

The show brought together the creative team of Hambledon Productions’ pre-pandemic hit Dracula! One Bloody Fang After Another. “The success of Dracula showed there was a strong audience for, how can I put it, “re-interpreting classic texts, with a British sense of humour”. We’ve assembled the same creative team, and the show is, I think, more ambitious, sillier, but just as impressive and fun.”

Do you need to have read or seen Moby Dick? “I do, you don’t!,” jokes John. “The story-telling comes second to joke-telling, even though we’ve managed to stay faithful to the book and the original characters.”

The production toured to many festivals in 2023, picking up great audience response and favourable reviews, creating a natural springboard for this huge UK Tour. “Audiences are crying out for pure entertainment; I think there’s an increasingly stronger wish to sporadically switch off from both the mundane and the gravity of current affairs and such, and that it’s important that there are shows and comedic works that offer the chance to do that.”

Maybe Dick is being performed at the Boatyard Space at New Continental, Preston, on Thursday, 9th May, 7.30pm. Tickets can be bought at www.newcontinental.net.