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Feature: The Blossoming of a New Clapham Comedy Festival

Rosebuds Comedy Festival

The Rosebuds Comedy Festival is Here!

Rosebuds is the brand new comedy festival hitting The Bread & Roses Theatre this month! Forage through a carefully curated arrangement of over twenty of the best budding alternative comedians in town, hand-picked by The Defectors. Opening Tuesday 28th January, and running until Sunday 2nd February 2025.


Who we are.

We are The Defectors! More specifically, we are Harrison Cole, Daniel Hemsley and James Darby. We have been producing work as The Defectors since 2022, though our shared creative partnership goes back for almost a decade.  We are entering 2025 full of ambition, having garnered great critical and audience reception to our successful 2024 Fringe run of our Defective Inspector shows. During the past year, we established a partnership with The Bread & Roses Theatre in Clapham, becoming their Associate Company. With their assistance and collaboration, we have created and curated the brand new comedy festival Rosebuds, which kicks off at the end of January!

What is Rosebuds?

We see Rosebuds as a sort of big sibling to our regular variety night Scratch ‘n’ Sniff, which is hosted at The Bread & Roses (almost) every month and will be closing the festival. From the start, the goal was to give emerging comedy artists a platform to grow, and perform to some friendly audiences in the heart of South London. 

We lit the metaphorical beacons and put the word out that we were looking for all sorts of exciting comedy: WIPs, new work, and existing shows; from small snippets and sketches to fully formed fringe shows. We also got in touch with some artists we’d previously platformed at Scratch ‘n’ Sniff, and visited the Edinburgh Fringe to scout out some talent while performing our own two shows up there – no rest for the wicked! As a result, we’ve landed on a carefully curated arrangement of over twenty acts, featuring clowning, musical comedy, and even a one-man-mockumentary. Rest assured, Rosebuds has something for everyone! 

With thanks to…

Of course, none of this would be possible without The Bread & Roses, who have helped with the logistical side of things and provided us with a beautiful pub theatre to host all our amazing acts. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t give Jack Savage Designs a shout out for his gorgeous festival artwork and logo – see if you can spot his handiwork if you’re out and about in Clapham over the next couple of weeks!

We’re so proud of the acts we’ve brought together for this festival, and we can’t wait for you to discover them yourself – see you at the show! 


Thank you to The Defectors for talking to us. You can hear from some of the acts performing at the festival over the coming days. Please come back for more!

Rosebuds Comedy Festival is at The Bread & Roses Theatre from Tuesday 28th January until Sunday 2nd February 2025. Further information and booking are available here.

Everything Theatre

Everything Theatre is proud to support fringe theatre, not only in London but beyond. From reviews to interviews, articles and even a radio show, our work is at the heart of the industry, and we are official assessors for the Off West End OffComm awards. Founded in 2011 as a pokey blog run by two theatre enthusiasts, today we are staffed by diverse contributors - people who not only work in theatre, but also in law, medicine, marketing and even psychiatry! We are all united by our love for theatre.

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