Writer-director Ewan Mulligan brings their show, Stories From The End, to Lambeth Fringe.
“Six stories from six different endings. Stories From The End asks you to look at what survival might look like after the end of time.
UGLI Theatre Company presents this exploration of what might be around the corner, stories of people surviving and even thriving amongst the bones of society.”
Where: Effra Social
When: 22 Oct
Ticket link: https://lambethfringe.com/events/stories-from-the-end
Ewan tells us more about the show.
What inspired the creation of Stories From The End, and why work back from the endings?
I’ve spent the past year looking at the post-apocalypse for our debut show, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, so I suppose I’ve just got Armageddon on the brain!
It’s an interesting question though, what happens after it all ends? We’re obviously not the first to take a swing at it, and there’s loads of stuff that I drew from in writing the monologues. But I think it’s an infinite well, really.
Here, I just wanted to look at almost abundant survival, like post-apocalypses where people were living, not just surviving. So I started from there. How would people survive if it all ended?
I ended up looking at a lot of pre-industrial culture, talking about how religion and agriculture formed foundations to societies and building out from there.
A couple of the monologues come more from what I thought would be a funny reaction to the apocalypse, back in 2021 I got obsessed with that show Doomsday Preppers and it’s been lodged in my brain ever since.
It does bear the question though, what if they’re right in the wrong direction? It’s all I can think about when I watch it. They’re so set on one way that it all will end, that what if they’re blind sided by what actually comes.
Why should audiences come along to the show, and what might they expect?
I want people to come to the show so we can have that conversation about what might happen next.
Here are just six options for the aftermath, and it varies from the optimistic to the surreal to the grim, so I want people to ask themselves what they think is next? And maybe even, what end they hope we get?
It’s hard to tell people what to expect from the show itself, really, the monologues shift in tone quite drastically, and it’s a really mixed bag of topics. But we have six incredible performers tackling them.
Like, I seriously can’t get over some of the people we’ve got on this line up. And a lot of this material has then been tailored to them.
I’m not precious about my writing, so we’ve really been able to cut and twist the original monologues to fit the actors we’ve got.
Do you find fringe festivals inspiring?
Immensely! I mean, it would be hard not to be inspired by them. I’m a real sucker for spending entire days in a single venue and just trying to see as much there as possible.
I think what’s inspiring for me is the breadth of material. As a company, we always want to cover as much ground as possible, and fringe festivals or venues are really the best way to do that.
I’m also always looking to be surprised by something, a performer doing something new or some writing with an interesting angle, and I think the fringe is the best place to find that.
Obviously venues like BAC, Soho, and Summerhall do programme experimental work, but I’ve always found that some of my best nights in a theatre are watching someone unknown in a basement somewhere just trying something new.
What’s next for the show?
This show probably doesn’t have a future, to be really honest. I knew we wanted to do something pretty much immediately after I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream and these are ideas that have been rattling around with no home, so it felt like a good match.
Maybe we’ll bring it back as an anthology show, offer out the chance for other writers to work within this style or jumping off point, who knows.
But for now we’re looking towards a very busy 2026. There are a few plates spinning at UGLI, so there’s going to be a lot more coming from us at a couple of festivals and venues.
I’m excited. We’re hoping to keep growing our pool of collaborators and bring out some stuff that really surprises people.
We were talking the other day about what makes a show right for UGLI and it’s a really broad church, obviously we’re working under the banner of ‘experimental grotesque theatre’ but I think there are a lot of ways to fulfil those three words without treading the same ground.
The last show was an adaptation of a novel. This is six bits of new writing, and next, we may do some Dryden. I want to keep people on their toes a bit with it all, and I think we’ll manage that!