Welcome to
LipService Theatre
LipService Theatre was created by comedy duo Sue Ryding and the late Maggie Fox. During a 40 year career together they created 22 original comedies for the theatre, won multiple awards, plus a series on Radio 4 and many TV appearances.
"The Laurel and Hardy of literary deconstruction"
The Guardian
"In terms of comic inventiveness they are unstoppable force"
Time Out
Funny Stuff-40th anniversary tour & archive
To commemorate 40 years of LipService, Sue is touring a new show, "Funny Stuff". In 2022 her comedy partner Maggie Fox died and Sue was left with a shipping container full of stage props, costumes, wigs, hats, shoes, sheep, you name it. This show looks at all the “stuff” we accumulate, hoard and hate to let go. In this humorous and creative response to grief, Sue struggles to part with a life sized stuffed sheep, a badger onesie, some ruby slippers, a sinking bog, Charlotte Bronte’s knickers and a host of soft toys. Touring anecdotes are combined with archive footage from LipService shows.
“Walks the line between side splittingly funny and genuinely heartfelt… a little bit like magic”
The Reviews Hub
What our audiences say:
“It was the most heartwarming show, it made me laugh, it made me cry, was so beautifully scripted and thought out. Thank you for sharing your journey of loss and grief and equally thank you for keeping Maggie’s memory alive”.
“A spectacular performance”
Click here to watch a trailer
The tour is accompanied by a wraparound exhibition, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The audience is invited onstage at the end of the show to view the artefacts and contribute to a 40th anniversary visitors’ book. This production premiered on February 7th 2025, the tour continues in October. See the tour schedule below for all dates and ticket links.
Tour dates.
October 3
Junction Goole
Tickets not yet on sale
LipService is awarded a grant from the National Heritage Lottery Fund
“LipService is thrilled to announce an award of £46,197 from the National Heritage Lottery Fund for a new heritage project, Funny Stuff. A full press release with details of the award and the project can be read here.
These are the headlines. The grant supports the wraparound exhibition that accompanies the Funny Stuff show tour, a digital archive with show recordings, scripts, reviews, fan mail to be launched in early autumn, a physical archive of props, costumes, bespoke items to be housed at Manchester Central Library in the space that was the Library Theatre, a film of the exhibition with full access for Deaf and disabled audiences, and a symposium at the end of the project. We are looking for volunteers to help box list archival material so please email info@lip-service.net if you’d like to be involved. Full training provided, plus cake and conversation. Basically, lots of fun sorting through the funny stuff! Sue Ryding, LipService Artistic Director said "I’m so thrilled to be creating a lasting legacy for the company and for Maggie, and I’m grateful for the support of the National Heritage Lottery Fund, made possible by players of the National Lottery".
