27 Oct 2026
Deborah Heath is down the pub with Make It Beautiful Theatre Company for a chilling time at the Trestle Theatre…
Spooky season is already in full swing, and although I am not a fan of Halloween shenanigans, I love a good ghost story. I’m also very partial to the work of Make It Beautiful Theatre Company, so the opportunity to combine both and atatend their delightfully creepy thriller ‘The Nag’s Head’ was too good to miss!
Make It Beautiful are Cara Steele, Felix Grainger and Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson; a young, forward-thinking theatre troupe based in London, having met whilst training at The Drama Centre. They tour their energetic storytelling pieces around the UK and internationally as well as championing the power of improvisation. I first came across them at the Roman Theatre Festival some years ago, when their quirky show The Canterbury Improv Tales blew my socks off.
‘Gawain And The Green Knight’ continued to prove their ability to reinvent a historical tale but ‘The Nag’s Head’ is the first of their modern-day pieces I have had the chance to see.
Siblings Jack, Sarah and Conor don’t meet up as much as they used to. Super-ambitious Sarah has been busy in London as an entrepreneur and is keen to leave her sleepy Shrewsbury upbringing behind. Conor too, has moved on, although perhaps in a less focussed way. It is only good old Jack who has stayed behind to fly the family flag, combining his career as a teacher with keeping an eye on their father’s ailing pub. Thrown together by necessity on the occasion of Dad’s wake, the three siblings are faced with the reality of needing to pull together to maximise the benefit of their inheritance – The Nag’s Head. This is complicated further by the unexplained arrival of a rather creepy painting…
What follows is a well-paced story exploring ambition and responsibility in the face of adversity, not to mention having some pretty pithy things to say about faceless pub chains!
Even though things get pretty dark, I applaud the way the script never loses an underlying sense of childish fun.
To see the three siblings reinstate their traditional way of resolving disputes with “Sibling Council” featuring Professor Quentin and Pooey Bum-Bum is a joy to behold, as is their dance routine. The multi-role opportunities for the actors are also a marvellous vehicle for comedy; I particularly liked Julie, the booze-loving medium.
Designer Bruce Grainger set the scene efficiently as soon as the audience entered.
A versatile black space needed only minimal props to establish that not only were we in a pub, but a pretty dilapidated one at that. Indie Kilbride’s tech was well executed throughout. The ominous drip reinforced the feeling that the landlord had been letting things slip, not to mention putting us on edge. Use of incidental music too (by folk band Good Habits) was well chosen to match the terror of the developing story.
The structure of the script is spot on with exactly the right rises and falls and twists and turns you would expect from a ghost story. There are plenty of jump scares for horror-loving audience members who no doubt would have come away satisfied.
However, at its core ‘The Nag’s Head’ is a family piece which is sometimes spine-tingling, sometimes touching but always, always funny. My compliments to the actor/writers for their superb performances throughout their brilliant play.
I came away from ‘The Nag’s Head with a very warm feeling. It is a masterful piece of cosy-creepy storytelling with excellent technical and creative realisation.
Furthermore, it has left me thinking about the importance of supporting independent pubs. My congratulations to director Kelly Ann Stewart and the talented Make It Beautiful team for showing me the best piece of theatre I have reviewed all year.
If you love pubs, ghost stories or family-based comedy then ‘The Nag’s Head’ will have something for you. Keep an eye out for when it next comes to town. Make It Beautiful continue to lead in the way in independent theatre and I hope they bring one of their other shows to a space near us very soon.
