Exciting new theatre and events coming to Exeter’s Elevate Festival 2025

Exeter’s annual Elevate Festival returns from 12–18 October 2025, featuring new theatre, workshops, and performances by South West artists.

Led by Exeter Northcott Theatre, the week-long event has become a fixture in the city’s calendar, offering audiences a chance to see new work alongside established voices. 

This year’s line-up ranges from reimagined classics to experimental new writing, with events staged at Exeter Northcott, Barnfield Theatre and Exeter Phoenix. 

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The festival opens on Sunday 12 October with Philosophy of the World, a Fringe First Award-winning piece by In Bed With My Brother. 

Inspired by cult band The Shaggs, it’s billed as loud, funny, and deliberately chaotic.

From there, the programme branches out: physical theatre workshops, panel discussions with artists, and new plays including Layli & Majnun, a retelling of the SWANA love story, and Playing Dead (but why am I still talking?), a solo show exploring intimacy and storytelling. 

Family audiences can look forward to Cluck!, a musical about “Mike the Headless Chicken,” while comedy comes in the form of Meet Mayor Max, the tale of a town with a dog for mayor.

One of the big announcements this year is a new partnership between Exeter Northcott and Exeter Phoenix, who are joining forces to co-produce a series of Scratch Nights. 

Other highlights include a rehearsed reading of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (Thursday 16 October), First Ripple Sharing, a piece exploring female pleasure and agency (Friday 17 October), and Tony Hawks Gets (Non) Violent, a one-act musical about psychologist Marshall Rosenberg (Saturday 18 October).

The first will take place at Exeter Phoenix on Monday, 13 October as part of the festival, giving emerging and established artists a platform to test new material in front of an audience.

Katy Danbury, Performance Programmer at Exeter Phoenix, said: “As applications for each Scratch Night increased, the need was made very clear, and it made sense to pool our resources together and platform this offer across both of our venues.”

Sam Parker, the Artist Development Producer for the Northcott, said that the "Elevate Festival is a vibrant celebration that brings together artists and audiences from across the South West" and it is "an energising space to connect, create, discover fresh talent, unlock new skills and spark inspiration through performance, workshops and meet-ups.

Throughout the year, we support several artists and companies through our Elevate R+D strand, offering rehearsal space and creative support to South West artists at different stages of developing new performance work."

Speaking on who the Elevate Festival is for, Emma Stephenson, the Finance & Operations Director and Joint Chief Executive of Exeter Northcott Theatre, said: “Elevate is for everyone who is part of or interested in theatre in the South West.

It’s for artists who have stories they want to tell and skills they want to develop, and it’s for audiences who are interested in discovering new works and new talents.”

The Elevate Festival is important as it is a "celebration of the thriving artist community that exists in the South West" which pulls all "artists together and has them in one space", says Sam. 

Running throughout the week, Exeter-based company Squeezebox will also invite audiences to take part in Anon Making, a participatory art project where visitors transform cut-out canvases into unique creations.

Elevate Festival runs from 12–18 October at venues across Exeter. Tickets are available through Exeter Northcott and Exeter Phoenix.