Plebbing Up

Plebbing Up is a spoken-word theatre experiment celebrating female friendship, working-class resilience, and the lost voices of East London.

Step inside a recreated pie and mash shop, part memory, part myth, where steam fogs the windows, liquor scents the air, and the walls whisper stories of change. Here, two lifelong friends reunite after years apart, navigating love, class, and the shifting landscape of a city that’s forgotten their kind of people.

Blending spoken word, storytelling, and rhythm, Plebbing Up gives voice to the women who built London but rarely get to speak for it. Through humour, honesty, and poetry, the story captures what it means to rise up, move out, and still long for home. It’s about the emotional cost of climbing when your roots run deep.

Plebbing Up celebrates the Cockney heart of London: its sounds, its slang, its solidarity.

Created and performed by Curly Wordy (Louise Hale) a poet and former community journalist inspired by real East End voices, Plebbing Up is her bold debut from page to stage. Raw, rhythmic, and unfiltered, it’s an ode to friendship, to womanhood, and to the working-class stories that refuse to disappear.

Sit close. Listen deeper. Lock lips with the unlit bits of the city — before they’re gone.

Creative team:

Credits

Louise Hale - Writer and Creator
Phoebe Barran - Director
Martha Rumney - Producer
Bruce Basudde - Field Recordings & Videographer

Cast:
Louise Hale as Lou
Bex Booker as Kell