No Apologies

Emma Frankland brings No Apologies to Live Theatre on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October, both nights starting at 7:30pm. It's a queer re-imagining of Nirvana's 1993 MTV Unplugged concert, written and performed by Frankland herself, who's a multi-award-winning writer for stage and screen. The show arrives in Newcastle after a critically acclaimed run at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival, where it picked up the Bragi Award for creativity and artistic excellence and a Besties Award for new writing, before heading out on a major world tour.

Frankland describes it as a collision between theatre and grunge, autobiography and alternate history, weaving pop culture together with mythology and ritual, all fuelled by the experience of coming of age in the nineties. It's a radical take on one of the most famous live recordings of that era, so if you've got a soft spot for the original, you'll recognise the starting point, though the show takes it somewhere quite different. The performance runs 70 minutes and is recommended for ages 16 and over.

Frankland wrote and performs the piece, and it's directed by Harry Clayton-Wright. The sound is a big part of it, too: punk composer Keir Cooper provides the original music and an anarchic sound score that runs through the whole thing. The production is by Marlborough Productions.

Tickets are £17, with concessions at £12. Both the Friday and Saturday shows start at 7:30pm in the Main Auditorium at Live Theatre, Broad Chare, Quayside, NE1 3DQ, and there's a post-show talk on the Friday night if you fancy staying on for a bit.