★★★★★ THE SCOTSMAN I ★★★★ INDEPENDENT I ★★★★ TIME OUT
Cult cabaret superstars Bourgeois & Maurice bring their fans a brand-new show to Soho Theatre for a 21-night run of Pleasure Seekers. The show opened on 8 April and tickets are available from www.sohotheatre.com.
Hedonism – the new religion
After a few years locked inside their spaceship B&M are back on earth with a new mission: to dedicate their lives exclusively to pleasure. They’re giving up on cynicism and embracing hedonism as their new religion instead. But like most religions this gets very complicated very quickly. Turns out having fun is quite a lot of hard work…
Pleasure Seekers takes B&M on one big party in search for ultimate happiness. Hilariously witty this pop-satire has made them one of the UK’s most subversive and original musical acts featuring original music.
Bourgeois and Maurice said: “We’re thrilled to be back at Soho Theatre after 5 years away, and even happier that they’ve let us into their main house to let our wildest ambitions run wild! Pleasure Seekers is a feast for the eyes and ears and it’s incredible to see it brought to life by a phenomenal creative team. We can’t wait to welcome human sexuals to our pleasure palace – it’s gonna be fun but trigger warning: it does get quite weird (sorry).”
The duo is one of the top acts in London’s alternative performance scene and first performed in 2007 and have gone on to tour the world – collecting fans from Belgrade to New York. They have performed at the Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre and Sadler’s Wells and regularly appear at Soho Theatre.
In 2020 they enjoyed critical success with their main stage musical Insane Animals, commissioned and produced by HOME Manchester. The show ran for 3 weeks and was one of the venue’s best-selling productions. They have created a further 8 full-length theatre shows as a double act, and their 2016 show How To Save The World Without Really Trying was one of the top 20 best reviewed comedy shows at Edinburgh Fringe 2016. They have released four studio albums and been commissioned to write songs for BBC Radio 3, Birmingham Rep and Theatre503. In 2017 they created a Virtual Reality music video for their song Opinions, with VR production company Breaking Fourth, which received a Special Jury Mention at the 2018 Raindance Film Festival and won Best VR Experience at GoShort Festival 2019. In January 2019 they released their first scripted web series, Youthanasia, co-produced by FeatureOne and Supercreeps, which was part of the Official Selection for Stareable Fest 2019.
Bourgeois and Maurice is the brainchild of writer and perfomers Liv Morris and George Heyworth
GEORGE HEYWORTH:
Writer and performer George Heyworth is one half of acclaimed music-satire duo Bourgeois & Maurice. Born from the alternative cabaret and clubland scene of mid-00s London, B&M have gone on to tour the world with their brand of highly acerbic, ultra-contemporary cabaret. Outside of B&M George has worked as a child voice actor for CBBC, toured the UK with dance collective Clod Ensemble and is currently developing ’Top of the Flops’, a new show about the world’s greatest flop musicals. He studied Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London and trained in the Art of Being Scary at Sudden Impact’s Scare School with Madame Tussauds. A skill he rarely gets to use these days, sadly.
LIV MORRIS:
Liv Morris is a writer and performer and one half of acclaimed musical duo Bourgeois & Maurice. With B&M she has written and performed in 9 music-theatre shows, including their first Mainstage musical Insane Animals in 2020, as well as touring the world and releasing 5 studio albums. She has also worked as a producer of new plays, and as a script reader for Soho Theatre, the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting and the National Theatre. She studied English & Drama at Royal Holloway and MA Text and Performance at RADA / Kings College.
CREATIVES:
Director: Jude Christian Director
Set Designer: Emma Bailey
Costume Designer: Julian Smith
Lighting Designer: Marty Langthorne
Musical director & producer: Victoria Falconer
Musical director & producer: Jarrad Payne
Producer: Beckie Darlington
Previous praise for Bourgeois and Maurice:
“Witheringly sharp and pointedly British” ★★★★ Independent
“Modern day music hall stars” The Guardian
“Clever, spiky and humane” ★★★★★ The Scotsman
“Musical comedy’s answer to the Manson Family” Evening Standard
“The sound and music are electrifying. Trust me, it’s brilliant” Big Issue North
You may also enjoy reading about Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World new musical
