The Guest is Cockahoop’s new play. It is our response to the crisis which we are all facing: the mass movement of people, due to the climate emergency, war and global economic inequities. In the near future, in a small town near here, live a couple. They are visited by a stranger from there.  Should they invite the stranger in?  Get to know them a bit? Help them?  Or is it safer to build their wall even higher to protect themselves? The stranger keeps returning with evermore surprising offers and demands. Each time the couple must decide how to respond. Will they learn anything from each other, or will they remain strangers?

In 2023/2024 through creative workshops and conversations, professional actors and migrant communities helped develop the play’s concept and create the back stories for the characters. Since then, Cockahoop have been hard at work developing the final script. 

In March 2025 a group of diverse creatives (including those with lived experience of migration) will embark on an exciting journey to bring the work to life. The play will then be performed at Omnibus Theatre for 3 weeks (8 to 26 April 2025).

Surrounding the production, there will be a series of engagement events built in partnership with groups and individuals with lived experience of migration. In collaboration with organisations representing migrant communities from across London, we will be hosting drama workshops, curtain raisers, panel discussions and an exhibition to encourage artistic responses to the work and debate.

We plan to take The Guest on tour from 2026. If you are a theatre space who is interested in hosting this production or a group who would like to host or attend a workshop please do get in touch.