Pickpocket Theatre Company asks Are You Waiting To Be Found?
After the success of our 2025 Camden Fringe Interviews, we thought it only right to attempt a repeat for 2026. So throughout July we’ll be publishing new interviews each day to give a taste of what to expect from London’s best fringe theatre festival. The festival starts Monday 3 August this year, so we may give ourselves a couple of days off inbetween the end of the interviews and the first shows… then again, we might not.
You can find out more about Camden Fringe, along with details of every show playing this August here. You can also find all of this year’s interviews as they are published here.
Something shadowy is lurking at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre this August. Behind closed doors, Pickpocket Theatre Company has been piecing together Are You Waiting To Be Found?, a cryptic blend of detective noir, dark comedy, music hall magic, and Beckettian absurdism. But in an era where trust is scarce and missing truths haunt the margins, who is really pulling the strings?
To uncover what lies beneath the surface, we stepped into the interrogation room with writer and director Frances Piper, assistant director and stage manager Mabel Grayson-Hayburn, and cast members Angus Vaughan, Dan Brindley, Emily Santos, Rosa Hendrie, and Zita Wai Yan Ki. Read on as they reveal secret onstage transformations, language challenges, alternative comedy royalty, and just what it takes to bring a worn-out spy story to life on a minimal Fringe budget… if you dare to look closer.
If you had to describe the vibe of your show in just one sentence, what would it be and how does it manifest on stage?
Mabel: It’s perfect for fans of dark comedy, doomed romance and flawed anti-heroes, from Potter’s Singing Detective to Slow Horses’ Jackson Lamb, all with a sprinkling of music hall magic and a detective noir vibe.
Why is 2026 the perfect time for this show to be seen?
Frances: Our show captures the zeitgeist, a kind of ‘anxiety’ in the air, around information, what to believe in, and who to trust. Subverting conventional genre expectations by blending comedy, detective stories, absurdism, and old-time music hall, we riff on ideas of ‘the missing’ and why we lost them in the first place.
What is something a performer has brought to a character that completely surprised you?
Frances: All of the actors have brought a huge amount to their characters of course, but one of my happiest moments in the rehearsal room was seeing how Angus (playing Ross) inhabits the role of Titania in one of the ‘sketches’ the four detectives are required to perform to entertain their boss.
How challenging has this role been for you?
Rosa: I’ve loved the challenge of learning to play the ukulele, and choreographing the music-hall routines!
Emily: Singing in French! I’m bilingual English/Portuguese, but French was a brand-new language for me.
Being fringe and a festival, we all know sets have to be bare minimum. How have you got around this?
Zita: With great difficulty!! We’ve changed the ‘dimly lit ante-room’ where my character spends most of the play into a simple desk, chair, and table lamp upstage. But I get to switch the lamp on and off as part of the show, so I can call myself a lighting technician now!
Are there any plans for what comes next after the show has finished its run, for you or the show?
Mabel: Yes! As we’re a North/South company (based in Peckham and Manchester), we’ll be taking an extended version of the play to the wonderful 53two Theatre in Manchester in January 2027.
If your show had a soundtrack, what songs would definitely be on it?
Frances: Well, we do have a couple of musical numbers in the show, but songs not in the show that hint at the themes and vibes would be Elvis’ ‘Suspicious Minds’, Myles Smith’s ‘Stargazing’, and Brandon Flowers/Johnny Marr’s version of ‘Let Me Get What I Want’.
If your show was a love letter to a specific person, place, or era, who or what would it be?
Dan: Definitely to Samuel Beckett!
Angus: Sssh, don’t mention ‘you know who’! I’d say a love letter to all those worn-out spies and private detectives; Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, George Smiley…
What’s it like to be working with the actor and writer who Rik Mayall described as ‘the mastermind behind alternative comedy’; Mr Lloyd Peters?
“Lloyd’s the glue that holds the whole thing together. I just feel very lucky (and a bit in awe).”
“Who’s Rik Mayall? Ha ha ha!”
“Terrifying!”
“So exciting—can’t quite believe it…”
Our thanks to the team for the chat. Are You Waiting To Be Found? plays at The Lion and Unicorn Theatre from Monday 24 to Wednesday 26 August as part of Camden Fringe.
