Cream Tea and Incest is my baby. It set me off down a terrible path known as “professional comedy”.
I started writing the show in 2016, performed it a few times in Leicester and London before taking it up to Edinburgh, which I did for three consecutive years. Very graciously for a play, it sold out each time.
In and amongst that we also got a prestigious 3 week run at the Hope Theatre in Islington, an incredible process that was a) transformative and b) unrepeatable. We got lots of lovely 4 and 5 star reviews, listed below.
The show went on to play in Warsaw, where 4000 people saw it.
Romance! Adventure! Murder! Aristocrat Eddie Spangler and valet Jeffrey must learn the meaning of these words and more in this new knockabout Edwardian comedy. Delight in their capers, mix-ups, and the dead bodies left in their wake.
We follow top toff Eddie Spangler and his unflappable valet, Jeffrey, as a simple matchmaking quest quickly deteriorates into a race against time when the Machiavellian forces of the aristocracy move to wreak their vengeance. Lord Wiggins is set to inherit Rhodesia upon his marriage to Emily Rhodes, but their romance is faltering. It is up to Eddie and Jeffrey to sort Wiggins out as quickly and violently as possible. Meanwhile – the evil Lord Biggins lurks in the shadows, waiting to execute dark schemes of his own…
★★★★★ – West-End Wilma
★★★★★ – Lexical Lunacy
★★★★★ – Dark Chat
★★★★ – Broadway Baby
★★★★ – Remote Goat
★★★★ – IThankYouTheatre
★★★★ – LondonTheatre1.com
★★★★ – Binge Fringe
★★★★ – Spy In The Stalls
★★★★ – EverythingTheatre
★★★★ – SecretReviewLDN
Highly Recommended Show – Fringe Review
_________
There have been about a thousand different casts for this show. I was Eddie Spangler for most of them but in 2019 I decided to take a step back to focus on Riddlegang while Cream Tea toured.
Rather than manually listing all previous casts, here they are in the style of the timeline section of a band’s Wikipedia page:
Written by Benjamin Alborough
Directed by Benedict Philipp
Choreography by Hector Mitchell-Turner
Design by Francesca Leone & Olivia Rose Deane
Musical Direction by Olivia Rose Deane
Produced by Lauren King
Performances:
9th & 10th February 2017 – LCB Depot (Leicester Comedy Festival)
17th April 2017 – Leicester Guildhall
20th, 21st, 22nd April 2017 – The Bread and Roses Theatre, London
30th July 2017 – Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester
7th – 13th August 2017 – theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)
10th – 28th April 2018 – The Hope Theatre, London
7th July 2018 – OSO Arts Centre, Barnes (Barnes Fringe)
3rd – 25th August 2018 – theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)
31st July – 25th August 2019 – Gilded Balloon Rose Basement (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)
21st October – 25th October 2019 – Kino Elektronik, Warsaw, Poland (10 shows)
A big thank you to Francesca Leone, Shree Ziradkar, Adam Unwin, Edward Spence, Luke Stavenuiter, Ivo de Jager, Harry J Williams, Rory O’Sullivan, Aidan Cheng, Sam Wharvell, Doug Deans, Matthew Parker, Benedict Philipp, Will Beynon, James King, Holly Ellis, Edward Dargiewicz, Sean Thurgood, Emily Gleaves and all of our Indiegogo backers.
Cream Stream Tea and Incest
COVID-19 interrupted my plans of putting the show on indefinite hiatus and I thought that it might be fun to write and livestream a new sequel to the original show every week of lockdown.
I did it for five weeks before I had to have a seriously long lie down.
Have you ever tried writing a halfway comprehensible and funny half hour sitcom in less than a week – five times?
Extremely fun though and I’m very happy with how they turned out.
Here they are below; but if you’re looking for one to start on my favourite is #3.
Stream Tea S01E01: From Russia with Jeffrey
Stream Tea S01E02: The Quest for the Blarney Stone
Stream Tea S01E03: The Saint Valentine’s Day Flatterer
(co-written with Harry J Williams)
Stream Tea S01E04: Sex, Lies and Very Large Apes
(co-written with Harry J Williams)
Stream Tea S01E05: The King, His Brother, His Lover and Jeffrey
(guest written by Eoin McAndrew)
Benjamin Alborough 