Desperate Men Theatre Company
Desperate Men Theatre Company is a street theatre group from the United Kingdom. It was started in 1980 by Richie Smith and Jon Beedell and is the UK’s longest-running street theatre company. Now based in Bristol, they create original, accessible comic theatre and also offer street performances, bespoke shows, and creative advice.
The company has appeared in other productions, such as the Old Profanity Showboat in 1985, where Smith played Buster and Beedell played Screwy. Smith later reprised his role in the 1988 London production at the Bloomsbury Theatre.
Desperate Men often tackles social and environmental topics. They have made shows about litter (Rubbish Heads), recycling (Eco-Pirates), and Charles Darwin’s bicentenary (Darwin and the Dodo). In 2007 they led the Severn Project, a large outdoor arts project.
They have worked abroad, including in Beirut and Hong Kong. They helped develop a project for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad in the South West of England and appeared in the Wye Valley River Festivals in 2014 and 2016.
The name comes from a line in a John Donne poem: “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men...”
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:58 (CET).