A season that sees its oldest child come of age + earn its crust; a season where you choose what you want to pay. Tales of displacement + of fitting in; of home + of what it means to belong; of getting by + of paying the rent…

Brought to you by hÅb — with The Lowry, Z-arts, STUN, Divergency, The Guinness Partnership — we look forward to seeing you at some or all of Autumn/Winter 2017. If you want to check out what happened last season take a look at our Spring/Summer 2017 archive, and if you came to an event please help us by taking a few minutes to fill out our online survey.

Autumn/Winter 2017 was previewed by Manchester Evening News.

What is Word of Warning + where did it come from?

Consistently refreshing and surprising, no season is ever the same…

Simply put, Word of Warning is a one-stop shop for the bonkers, the beautiful and the bizarre of new live performance — an attempt to keep alive the best of the 25 year greenroom legacy and to introduce new people to the possibilities of seeing live work in Manchester + beyond…

…a strand of alternative and fledgling work that has only recently got a new lease of life via Word of Warning and Emergency.
Creative Tourist on Manchester theatre (November 2014)

We take live work very seriously — but we don’t take ourselves seriously at all. Over the past 5 years we’ve shown funny, thought-provoking, beautiful work by the likes of FK Alexander, Richard DeDomenici, Eggs Collective, Nic Green, Ria Hartley, Stacy Makishi, Kim Noble, Proto-type Theater + Greg Wohead, amongst others. We’ve also created bonkers all ages live art (Haphazard), hosted Hunt & Darton’s pop-up art-café, unleashed bizarre behaviour upon Manchester’s city centre (Hazard) and created performance festivals in blocks of flats (Domestic).

Curated by the ever-impressive Word Of Warning…
The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner, on Domestic (November 2013)

Who’s it for? Anyone looking for a different night (or day) out.

We don’t want to put you off by talking labels — yes there’ll be theatre, live art, dance — the aim is to be anything but elitist or po-faced. So if you like comedy, music, gaming or just a friendly, stimulating evening — there’ll be something you might want to take a chance on.

What our audiences said about the work in 2016

• Astonishing. Like nothing else. Transformative, immersive, moving.
• Brave, dark, humerous, intimate, intense.
• Heartwarming, funny + engaging.
• Strangely mesmeric. A unique experience.
• Very enjoyable — felt accessible and thus enjoyable to all.
• You programme wonderful, daring performances that I have never been disappointed by.

Who is Word of Warning?

My name’s Tamsin Drury and I run an organisation called hÅb, which was greenroom’s partner for over a decade. You might not know hÅb but you might know some of our events — like Emergency (Manchester’s free marathon of live work, now in its eighteenth year) and Hazard (biennial random sprees of eccentricity in Manchester’s City Centre).

I’ve been around a while, a really long while… and in that time, I’ve been responsible for making the Arndale Tower flash, wrapping Cathedral Gardens in 7km of hazard tape and encouraging a mass audience conga and a glitter-cannon Hallelujah chorus! On the less eccentric side, over the years hÅb has also worked with literally hundreds of young NW artists to help them create new pieces of theatre + dance.

Please send programming enquiries to me at info@habmcr.org

I’m joined in this lunacy by John Franklin, greenroom’s long time programme co-ordinator, the friendly face greeting you and eliciting your feedback at many of our events. We are also grateful for the support of Toni-Dee Paul.

What our audiences said about us in 2016

• Always special, bringing the unexpected and intriguing, thank you.
• Bringing some of the most interesting performance work in the world to our city.
• Fabulous for seeing things different from the mainstream machine.
• Great organisation — a reason to move to Manchester.
• I don’t know what I would do with my spare time without you.