Arts & Culture
Award-winning comedy tour is coming to Oxford

Joseph Morpurgo’s bringing his award-winning show Hammerhead to The North Wall May 12. The Guardian have called it “uproariously funny – you could watch it twice and not stop laughing.”

In the early 19th century, an ambitious young Genevan scientist is attempting the impossible - to build a living, breathing creature from scratch. His ‘masterpiece’, however, turns out to be an abomination: a hideous, murderous monster, who torments - and eventually destroys - his creator.

Joseph Morpurgo presents his masterpiece: a boundary-smashing, 9-hour adaption of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Or is it?

Outlandishly funny multimedia comedy and new voodoo from the distinguished mind of the 2015 Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, three-time 2016 Chortle Award winner and BBC Radio Four star Joseph Morpurgo, featuring surreal set-pieces, vivid comic writing, subliminal pulse signals – and monsters. Following sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Soho Theatre, Hammerhead now embarks on a nationwide tour that also includes a special one-off performance at the South Bank Centre on 5th July.

Morpurgo’s previous shows are Time Out’s Number 1 show of 2015, Soothing Sounds For Baby (2015), in which he inserted himself into an episode of Desert Island DiscsOdessa (2014)in which a found VHS is used as the jump-off for a comic murder mystery; and Truthmouth (2013) - a one-man sketch show based around plundered stock images.

His debut BBC Radio 4 show, Joseph Morpurgo’s Walking Tour, aired in November and his other broadcast credits include Harry & Paul’s Story of the 2s (BBC Two), Murder in Successville (BBC3), The World of Simon Rich (BBC Radio 4) and Drunk History (Comedy Central). He has also written and performed in shorts for BBC Three and Sky Arts.

Morpurgo is also a member of the award-winning improvised ensemble Austentatious (★★★★★ The Times), whose recent achievements include a BBC Radio 4 commission and an extensive UK tour. As an improviser, he has also guest performed with The Comedy Store Players and Improbable.

For further information, and to purchase tickets, click here.